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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 
ON ETHICS 



BY 

CLARENCE HALL WILSON 



CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 
NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON 






Copyright, 1917, bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



MAR I* W 




lis 



CI.A457420 



PREFATORY NOTE 

It will be observed that the talks in this little book 
do not form a strictly continuous series. There is, 
however, a certain unity in the book in that the vari- 
ous subjects are treated consistently from a single 
point of view. This point of view is most clearly dis- 
closed in Chapter V, The Grand Adventure. 

Much of the moral counsel offered to the young has 
taken the form of warning against danger. It has failed, 
therefore, to make any strong appeal to the mind and 
heart of youth, for healthy youth is not timid. What 
is of more vital consequence is that this mean-spirited 
counsel is not true to sound morals nor to the facts 
of life. If it were heeded and faithfully followed it 
could produce at its best only prudent, cautious, cal- 
culating men and women; at its worst, moral weak- 
lings, unequal to the stern responsibilities and the 
fierce temptations of life. It has seemed better to me 
to take the opposite course and state the principles 
of right conduct in terms of strength and courage. 
Some of the views set forth on the following pages, 
when expressed in public discourse, have won such 
approval from experienced educators that I have been 
encouraged to expand them in this book, which is 
offered with the hope that it may prove useful to 
teachers and helpful to the young people of our schools. 



Vl PREFATORY NOTE 

The Suggestions for Reading at the end of each 
chapter are made from books easily accessible. There 
has been no effort to make them exhaustive. The 
poetical selections especially, and to some extent the 
prose selections, have been made with a view to certain 
passages which are likely to stick in the memory. 
But the real books to be read are the books of life, the 
histories, the biographies, the great works of fiction, 
and the great poems, books which are suggestive and 
not formally didactic. 

C. H. W. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Into the Woods 3 

II. Conscience . 14 

III. The Knowledge of Good and Evil 26 

IV. The Battle of Life 37 

V. The Grand Adventure 48 

VI. Courage 58 

VII. Companions 69 

VIII. Habits 80 

IX. Neglect and Degeneration 92 

X. Work 103 

XL Play 113 

XII. LlTTLE-MlNDEDNESS 125 

XIII. Liberty and Mastery 139 

XIV. Getting Square with the World 154 

Index 167 



TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 
ON ETHICS 



CHAPTER I 

INTO THE WOODS 

The Guides of the North Woods. — It was once my 
privilege to spend a summer, along with an old friend, 
in the woods of Canada. Of course we had our guides; 
we could not afford the time to explore the wilderness 
for ourselves. It will be sufficient to introduce the 
guides by their first names, Harry and George. Harry 
was a young man who had been in the woods about 
ten years. George was a man past middle life who 
had been in the woods from childhood. He had never 
been to school for a day, and could neither read nor 
write, but he was a master of woodcraft. One day, 
as our vacation drew near its close, Harry had an op- 
portunity to guide a party far to the north. The trip 
would occupy several weeks, and the pay was good, 
but it involved a part of the wilderness in which he 
had never been. So George proceeded to map out the 
journey for him. He told how to cross various lakes 
and ponds, how to find the "carries," how to avoid 
hills and bogs between lakes, where good camping- 
ground would be found, where and how to leave the 
beaten trail for short cuts, how and where to find un- 
frequented ponds in which the fishing was good. The 
landmarks and bearings were sometimes very obscure, 

3 



4 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

and required a practised eye to distinguish them even 
with the minute directions. A hemlock with the top 
blown off or a clump of birches leaning over the water 
was to guide to the landing where a "carry" began. 
A fallen tree, a sapling bent in a peculiar manner, a 
split rock, would indicate where a turning was to be 
made. George knew the woods as you and I know 
the streets of our home town. Harry listened with 
close attention and frequent question, for he wanted 
to find his way with as few mistakes as possible. 

Every One Who Is Old Was Once Young. — These 
talks are addressed to young people who are enter- 
ing the woods, by one who has been in the woods a 
good while, and who has tried to take his bearings by 
the way. He has made some mistakes which you need 
not make, has followed some "blind trails" which you 
may avoid, has been lost where you need not be, has 
missed some things which you may have. Some of 
you may be much more clever than he is, you may 
be more diligent and more observant than he has been, 
and you may easily make a better use of your life than 
he has made of his. But at the present moment he 
has this advantage over you, that he has been over 
the ground which you are to explore. That is to say 
that he assumes, what every teacher must assume, that 
on his particular subject he knows more than you do, 
else he could not presume to instruct you. His par- 
ticular subject is the journey of life with the -soul's 
adventures by the way. He may claim to know some- 
thing of what you need as you set out on the journey, 
something of the way you ought to go if you are not to 



INTO THE WOODS 5 

fail and get lost, something of the perils that lurk for 
you, and something of the way to meet them — not 
avoid them. He knows nothing of the way to avoid 
perils, and would not tell you if he did. He is quali- 
fied to advise you simply because he is older than you, 
because he has been over the trail ahead of you. 

One of the discouraging things we have to deal 
with is the unwillingness of young people to accept 
the advice of their elders. They fail to recognize the 
fact that this advice comes out of experience and the 
skill which experience gives. It is true that older peo- 
ple often seem to forget that they were ever young, 
and are therefore inconsiderate of youth's ambitions 
and interests, its curiosity and enthusiasm. But quite 
as often it is the young people who forget that the 
older people were once young, and that they ao know 
all about the experiences of youth, its temptations and 
dangers, its foolishness and mistake. A simple truth 
to remember is that everybody who is old was once young. 

The Mistake of Trying to Make Life Easy and Safe. 
— It must be admitted, however, that older people 
are not always wise in their wishes for the young. 
They often permit their affection to becloud their 
judgment. One of their temptations is the desire to 
make life easier for their children than it has been for 
themselves. For instance, a man who has had to 
work hard to make his way in life would like to see his 
son go by an easier way. If he yields to that desire 
the consequence is likely to be that his son will grow 
up a lazy, incompetent good-for-nothing, unfitted for 
the stern tasks of life. Or, a little closer to our point, 



6 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

a man remembers the temptations of his own youth, 
his mistakes which might easily have proved disas- 
trous, and seeks to shield his son from the like perils; 
throws about him so many safeguards, shuts him 
in to such safe associations that there seems to be 
little opportunity for him to go wrong. The result 
is likely to be a man of soft and flabby soul, without 
moral backbone, whom the slightest breath of tempta- 
tion will topple over. And then we are foolish enough 
to wonder that strong men so often have weak sons! 
I think that young people have a subtle appreciation 
of the moral cowardice in the counsels of their elders, 
and that they resent it. They covet for themselves 
the excitement, the peril, and the contest, and do not 
wish to be shielded. 

Well, let me promise you that I will resist this temp- 
tation to tell you how to live easily and to fight safely. 
A paradox which I shall emphasize more than once is 
this, that there is nothing so dangerous as seeming to 
be safe. I want to tell you how to fight, not how 
to run away and hide in the day of battle, and I am 
more than willing that you should begin your fighting 
now. I am very sure that if you do not encounter 
your perils now with a brave heart you will be a 
"slacker" in the great days to come. 

To Accept a Borrowed Experience Is Not Weakness 
but Wisdom. — Nevertheless, your time is too precious 
for you to waste more of it than is necessary in finding 
out for yourselves all that is already known by those 
who have been over the way which you are to travel. 
You are yourselves too valuable to be wantonly risked 



INTO THE WOODS 7 

in foolish and needless ventures. If you can borrow 
the lessons of others' experience, don't you see that 
you are so much to the good? It is not peril that is 
to be avoided — there is no avoiding that — but disas- 
ter. And although we are all of us bound to learn by 
our own mistakes, there is nothing to be gained by 
useless experiments and needless blunders. The thing 
that always has failed, and is sure to fail again, need 
not be tried over. When the woodsman finds that he 
has lost his way, he goes back and makes some mark 
at the point where he made a wrong turning, to guide 
himself and others in the future. The pioneer keeps 
his axe busy blazing the trail for those who are to come 
after. And that is what the moral precepts and the 
advice of older people amount to; they blaze the trail 
through the wilderness. 

The Heroisms That Remain. — There will still be 
enough of adventure left. No complete and infallible 
manual of life is possible, even if it were desirable. 
Many things you will still have to find out for your- 
selves. I have been through childhood and youth and 
young manhood, and can tell you what I have seen 
and learned by the way. It is familiar country to me, 
this region through which you are passing. But I have 
never been through to-morrow. That is to me as to 
you an undiscovered country. There will temptations 
meet you of which I cannot forewarn you, nor can any 
other, for nobody has been there. It is always true 
that 

"New occasions teach new duties; 
Time makes ancient good uncouth." 



8 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

In this respect all that those who are older can do for 
you is to give you certain tried principles to guide you, 
and leave the rest to your own courage and integrity. 
After all the wisdom gained by the long experience 
of those who have gone before, there are heroisms that 
remain, and must always remain. The untravelled 
world is before you. What adventures you may have, 
what perils encounter, what trial of your souls, I can- 
not tell you. I can only say: Be strong and fear not; 
the universe is framed for the righteous, and there- 
fore the just and resolute soul shall be victorious. 

The Right-Mindedness of Young People Is As- 
sumed. — But if, as I have intimated, the counsels of 
those who are older sometimes meet with a hostile 
spirit on the part of the young, it may be partly be- 
cause the counsels are given in a hostile spirit. It seems 
to be assumed very often that the young do not want 
to be good, and that their reluctant feet must be 
guided into the right way by harsh constraints. I as- 
sume the very opposite of that. I assume the essen- 
tial right-mindedness of young people. I once took 
up a book on boys with some eagerness to find out 
what it had to say on so important a subject. The 
book began with saying: "All boys are bad." I laid 
it down, and have never read it. I have no doubt it 
added some important qualifications of its first bald 
statement, but no qualifications could put right a 
statement so fundamentally false. When I say, "All 
boys are good," I may not be speaking the whole 
truth and nothing but the truth, but I am sure I am 
nearer right than the other. 

In another connection I shall say to you that we 



INTO THE WOODS 9 

have to fight our way whether we go right or go wrong. 
That means that there is some native good in us all 
that has to be overcome before we can go wrong, as 
there is some native bad in us to be overcome when 
we go right. There are some young people in whom 
the evil tendencies appear to be more pronounced than 
the good. They are the victims of an exceptional 
heredity, of a degrading environment, in rare instances 
of specific disease. But in the great majority of people 
good purposes predominate. It would be difficult to 
explain the undoubted moral progress of the race if 
this were not so. 

Careful observation of normal and healthy young 
people confirms the belief that they are governed in 
the main by good instincts. When they are bad it 
is because these good instincts have been stifled, or 
even because they have learned evil from the cor- 
rupted minds of those who are older; it may be, it 
often must be, because of the unjust and cruel assump- 
tion that they are instinctively and inherently bad. 
There is among all people a disposition to live up to 
the reputation given them. No greater wrong can be 
done to any one than to assume that he is bad with- 
out the positive proof. Even the law assumes inno- 
cence till guilt is proved. Common opinion should 
do no less. I shall assume, then, what I believe to be 
essentially true, that most young people are good. 
Indeed, I shall assume more than that, that the finest 
and noblest idealism in the world is that of young 
people, that their imaginations are all aglow with the 
romance of righteousness. 

I recall a striking illustration of this. One day I 



10 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

was walking down one of the poorer streets of a town 
when my attention was attracted by the outcries of a 
boy who seemed to be set upon by a gang of young 
ruffians. Three or four of them had him down while 
the rest were urging them on. He was struggling and 
howling like a good fellow. I hurried over to the 
rescue just as they released him, demanding an ex- 
planation. One of the boys held up a knife, and re- 
plied: "He drew this knife on that fellow, and we 
took it from him." "Give me back my knife," bawled 
the boy, who had got back on his feet. "I won't," 
was the reply; "I'm going to take it and give it to 
your mother." I decided that justice was being done, 
and went on my way. If ever I were to be accused of 
a crime of which I was innocent I should ask nothing 
better than to be tried before a jury of boys. But if 
I were guilty I should prefer a jury of men, for the 
justice of boys is terrible. Perhaps as much can be 
said for the justice of girls; I am sure it can if the 
offense be against modesty. It is not justice that we 
need to urge upon boys and girls, but mercy. They 
are more ready to punish than to forgive. 

The " Big Stick " Provokes Rather than Persuades. 
—I assume, then, that most young people want to be 
good. That seems not to be true only when goodness 
is painted in offensive colors; when it is made to ap- 
pear feeble and cowardly; when "the native hue of 
resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." 
When goodness is permitted to appear in its own hon- 
est colors, when it means noble purpose and chivalrous 
conduct, the courage of convictions and brave fight- 
ing for ideals, then I am sure that most young people 



INTO THE WOODS 11 

want to be good. I shall have more to say on this 
subject, and only want to assure you now that I bring 
no cudgels to beat about your heads as though you were 
disinclined to a just and virtuous life. 

The Rules of the Game. — I shall speak to you of 
adventure and battle and endurance. But there is 
another aspect in which the moral struggle of life may 
be viewed with justice and advantage. All games are 
governed by rules which are aimed to exclude unfair- 
ness, and to penalize it. Life is the great game, and 
it also is to be played according to the rules. The 
moral rules, all of them, up to the Golden Rule which 
caps them all, are just the rules of the game. To do 
wrong is to cheat at play, to break the rules of the game. 

The Pursuit of Goodness Is to Go Beyond Beaten 
Trails. — We are all in the woods, you and I. I have 
been in farther than you, and for the present have the 
advantage of you. But you are going farther in than 
I have gone or ever can go, and you have the advan- 
tage of me there. So far as I have gone, I can tell you 
something of the way. I can tell you of temptations 
and perils that I have met, and that you will surely 
meet. There is the place where two paths diverge, 
where pleasure and duty will not keep company. If 
you take the wrong turning there you will surely get 
lost. There is the place where the lure of gain tempts 
you to compromise your principles by just a little. 
If you get off the path there you may never find it 
again. There is the place where the difficulties of the 
way discourage you, and there is the place where dan- 
gers stand across the way. If you turn back at such 
places to find an easier and a safer path you will 



12 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

surely get lost. The path of duty is a rugged way, 
and it is thick beset with perils — it will be clean 
through to the end; I find it so still. That is the 
glory of it, as I shall say to you at another time. 

But you are going beyond my utmost journey; you 
are going to live in better times than I shall ever see, 
and they are going to be better because you help to 
make them better. There is the practice of virtue, 
in which more experienced people can guide you, and 
there is the pursuit of virtue, where the guides fail, 
and the trail is lost. Then you become a pioneer, your 
own pathfinder through the trackless woods. For 
your goal is not set down in the map; it is in the un- 
discovered country. You are to go beyond beaten 
trails; you are to be better than the people who have 
preceded you; you are to pass the old goals. That is 
the way the world makes its progress in morals, which 
is the basis of every progress, the new generation 
going beyond the older generation's "farthest north." 

This is the romance of righteousness, not only that 
it is an heroic struggle with familiar temptations, but 
that it is a sublime adventure in idealism. That is 
one reason why we who are older are anxious that 
you should get started right. The hope of the world 
is in you — the hope of a better world. We want you 
to get started right because we expect you 

"To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 
Of all the western stars." 

We expect you to be better than we have ever been, 
to win victories that have been denied to us, to raise 
a little higher the moral standards of the world, to 



INTO THE WOODS 13 

overcome the wrongs that still are tolerated, to enact 
into just laws the hopes which we have only seen in 
nebulous dreams. 

" The Best Is Yet to Be." — And that suggests one 
other word to be said. Never believe those who say 
that youth only is sweet and bright, that life stales 
and saddens as it advances into maturity and age. 
If that is ever so it is only of those who have got lost 
in the woods or have turned back from the trials and 
the perils of the way. And do not think because we 
lay such emphasis on the great days of youth, that 
these are the days of thrilling adventure beyond which 
all is tame and tedious. Life becomes greater as it 
advances, and that because the temptations and the 
perils thicken as we go forward. The importance of 
youth's great decisions is that, if made right, they 
strengthen us for the greater decisions to be made in 
the stern years of maturity; if made wrong, they en- 
feeble us for the severer testings to come. We are 
going on, all of us, you and I, into the woods, on the 
sublime and never-ending adventure of righteousness: 

" To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

First and always The Bible. Especial attention may be given 
to the book of Proverbs, whose wise and witty sayings easily 
fasten themselves upon the memory. But the great books to 
read and read again are The Gospels containing the teaching of 
Jesus, which establishes a higher moral standard for all time. 
Read also the Preface to Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies and Words- 
worth's great ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections 
of Early Childhood. Browning's Rabbi Ben Ezra should be read 
and parts of it committed to memory. 



CHAPTER II 

CONSCIENCE 

The Wonder of Conscience. — The philosopher Kant 
has a famous saying which runs like this: "Two 
things fill me with ever-increasing wonder and awe 
the more I ponder them — the starry heavens above me, 
and the moral law within me." We will readily grant 
the wonder of that sublime spectacle which greets our 
eyes when we look upward at night. But why should 
this moral law within, conscience, be paired with the 
starry heavens? 

Of two actions you know that one is right and the 
other wrong. How did you find out this distinction 
between good and evil? Well, perhaps you will say 
that you were taught the difference between right and 
wrong as you were taught other things; that it is one 
of the commonly accepted distinctions which you have 
taken as you found it. Or, you may claim that you 
have reasoned matters out for yourself, accepting com- 
mon opinion so far as it seemed reasonable to your 
own mind; that experience has confirmed certain con- 
clusions. There is therefore nothing wonderful about 
your knowledge of good and evil any more than about 
any other knowledge that you possess. 

But go on a little further. The time comes for you 
to make a decision, and at once you hear a voice 

14 



CONSCIENCE 15 

within demanding that you do the right thing and 
abstain from the wrong thing. You do the right thing, 
and instantly from invisible regions there comes a 
sweet and comforting applause. Or, you do the wrong 
thing, and again, and instantly, from unseen galleries 
there come the sound of hissing and the cry of shame. 
No ear hears it but your own, and yet there is nothing 
of which you are more certain than this voice within, 
nothing else that you understand half so well as just 
what it says. Is not this a wonder and a mystery ? 

The Voice Is Never Silent in an Emergency. — 
And it never fails. The gods of righteousness are 
sleepless. The Jove who presides at the secret coun- 
cils of the soul never nods. When temptation comes, 
conscience arrives at the same moment of time with 
its commands. It never misses a connection. You 
make your choice, and swift as the lightning, unfail- 
ing as the thunder-peal which follows, comes the judg- 
ment of conscience. You may do the right heroically, 
and the world about you make no note of it; you may 
do the wrong and escape detection or reproof from 
others. But this hidden guardian of your soul, noth- 
ing escapes, not even the secret thoughts of the heart. 
Is not this a wonder and a mystery ? 

There Is No Escape from Conscience. — Its effects 
are very profound. You not only hear the voice, but 
you are compelled to heed it up to a certain point. 
That is to say that, although you may disobey its com- 
mands, you cannot escape its judgments. You may 
miss the approbation of others, and yet enjoy a great 
and sweet satisfaction because you have the approba- 



16 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

tion of your own conscience. You may escape the 

censure of others and yet be miserable in self-scorn. 

The moral reactions are greater than the actions. 

You cannot give to others the satisfaction which right 

conduct brings to yourself; nor can you do a wrong 

to another that will hurt him as much as it hurts 

you. 

"For he that wrongs his friend 
Wrongs himself more, and ever bears about 
A silent court of justice in his breast, 
Himself the judge and jury, and himself 
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned." 

Is not this a wonder and a mystery? 
Conscience Is Independent of Any Control. — And 

here is another wonderful thing about conscience. 
It is your conscience, and yet it is not subject to your 
control. It is the voice of your own soul, and yet you 
cannot bid it speak or be silent, and you cannot tell 
it what to say. You cannot say: "My conscience 
shall approve this and disapprove that." When you 
have done right you cannot condemn yourself, and 
when you have done wrong you cannot forgive your- 
self. Your conscience is as independent as if it were 
not yours at all. You deal with yourself by a fixed 
law with the making of which you had nothing to do, 
and which you cannot alter in the slightest degree. 
You cannot argue with your conscience. You have 
to say what it says. Is not this a wonder and a mys- 
tery? 

Conscience Is Infallible. — There is yet one other 
wonderful thing about conscience, and that is that it 



CONSCIENCE 17 

always speaks the absolute truth, so far as you are 
concerned. It never makes mistakes. But we speak of 
a darkened conscience, or an enlightened conscience, 
or a misguided conscience. Such expressions plainly 
imply that conscience may be changed by education, 
and that it is capable of making mistakes. We ob- 
serve, too, that there is no precise agreement as to 
what is right and what is wrong. The thing that one 
man thinks right another man thinks wrong; what 
one may do with a clear conscience brings to another 
a sense of guilt. They cannot both be right. It looks, 
therefore, as though some consciences did make mis- 
takes. But that is because of a confusion of terms in 
our thinking. We make conscience responsible for 
what does not properly belong to it. We must, there- 
fore, try to distinguish conscience from the great 
world of moral ideas with which it is so closely related. 
Conscience Is Distinct from the Moral Judgment. 
— The idea of right and wrong seems to be innate; we 
brought it with us into the world. About this primary 
idea of right and wrong experience and speculation, 
education and even prejudice have built up a vast 
fabric of moral judgments which are more or less in 
disagreement with each other. The formation of 
these moral judgments is no part of the function of 
conscience. They may be mistaken, and they must 
often be wrong. We got them from our parents, from 
our teachers, from our companions. In general terms 
they express the traditions, the opinions, and even the 
prejudices of the class to which we belong, modified 
by our own experience and our own reason. 



18 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

But when the moral judgment is formed, conscience 
comes in to say that we must live up to it. Conscience 
bids us do the thing we think is right, and to abstain 
from the thing we think is wrong. In either instance 
we may be wrong in our judgment, but conscience 
makes no account of such errors — it is not responsible 
for them. The grocer's scales may not be accurate; 
but if he thinks they are accurate, he must give full 
weight according to their reading to be an honest man, 
and if he does that he is an honest man, although he 
may not be giving full sixteen ounces to the pound. 
Of course, it is the grocer's duty to see that his scales 
are accurate, and it is our duty to inform ourselves as 
fully as possible in the formation of our judgments. 
A diligent use of the means at our command for en- 
lightening our own minds on moral distinctions is an 
important part of moral conduct. Ethics, the science 
of right conduct, embraces a great deal that does not 
properly come under the head of conscience. 

The Double Function of Conscience. — Conscience 
comes in after the judgment is formed. It has two 
functions, each of which is implied in the other. First 
it commands us to do the thing that is right, that is, 
the thing we think is right, and to abstain from the 
wrong, which for us can be only the thing which we 
think is wrong. That is while the choice is being 
made, while the action is pending. Then when the 
action has been taken, it commends us when we 
have done what we thought was right and con- 
demns us when we have done what we thought was 
wrong. 



CONSCIENCE 19 

When we say, therefore, that conscience is infallible, 
that it makes no mistakes, it is only in this relative 
sense. What is absolutely right and absolutely wrong 
we do not always know. We are limited by the condi- 
tions which surround us, by the imperfection of our 
moral enlightenment. The world's past progress in 
morals is a witness for this fact. Things that were 
commonly thought right at one time are now com- 
monly thought wrong. There are few if any who do 
not change their minds in the course of their lives upon 
some moral questions. Our judgments to-morrow 
may be different from our judgments to-day. But to- 
day, and at any given time, we are bound to live up to 
the light we have. That is the stern necessity which 
conscience lays upon us. Up to the limit of the light 
we have it is an infallible guide. 

Conscience Is Instant in Its Demands. — Conscience 
calls for sharp decisions and for definite, heroic action. 
There are occasions when one must take time for de- 
liberation in forming his moral judgments. But when 
the judgment is formed, conscience brooks no delay, 
no indecision, no inaction. Very often the plea for 
delay and consideration is suspicious in itself, for it 
may mean, and is likely to mean, that questions of 
prudence and self-interest are being mixed up with 
conscience, that a plausible excuse is being sought for 
doing wrong. To be sure, hasty and thoughtless ac- 
tion is to be avoided. And yet there is an implied 
truth in the saying of the cynical Talleyrand : " Never 
act on your first impulses, for they are sure to be right.' ' 
He meant that conscience is quick in its decisions, and 



20 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

that deliberation is for the purpose of outwitting this 
stern monitor of the soul. 

Conscience Is Not Influenced by Considerations 
of Gain. — Usually conscience is wholly oblivious of 
consequences. But that is not always so. There are 
some acts whose moral quality can only be determined 
by their consequences. The drinking of alcoholic 
beverages is an excellent example in point. It is not, 
like lying or stealing, a thing that is clearly wrong in 
itself. It is only when we consider its consequences, 
the confusing of the mind and of the moral judgment, 
the injurious effects upon the body, the sorrow it 
brings and the degradation to which it leads, that it 
appears as a wrong thing to do. In all conduct we 
are bound to consider, not only the act itself, but also 
the effects of the act. When these effects appear to 
be morally injurious, the necessary inference is that 
the act itself is wrong. 

But conscience considers only such moral conse- 
quences, or the judgments formed in view of them. It 
does not take account of pleasure or pain, profit or loss. 
The familiar saying that "Honesty is the best policy" 
is just what its terms imply, a maxim of policy, not of 
morals. Conscience bids you do the right at whatever 
cost of comfort or advantage. It is uncalculating so 
far as any question of self-interest is concerned. The 
moral judgment to which it holds you makes answer 
to only one question: "Is it right?" To such ques- 
tions as: "Is it wise?" "Is it safe?" "Will it pay?" 
it is silent. That is to say, that conscience confines 
itself absolutely to the issue between right and wrong. As 



CONSCIENCE 21 

a matter of fact the right thing is very likely to be 
dangerous and unprofitable, but conscience is not in- 
fluenced by such considerations. 

Conscience May Not Be Borrowed. — Conscience is 
supremely an individual affair. It is not a commodity 
of exchange in the market. It can neither be bor- 
rowed nor lent. And yet there is nothing that people 
are more ready to try to borrow or lend. You find 
that your conscience bids you do a disagreeable thing, 
and how quick you are to take note of the fact that 
other people's consciences do not seem to make the 
like demands. On the other hand, have you never 
felt like reproving or condemning others for doing 
things which your conscience forbids? In the one 
instance you are inclined to borrow a conscience, in 
the other to lend your own. 

When you observe that your conscience is in dis- 
agreement with the consciences of your neighbors, it 
may be wise to review your moral judgments to see 
whether or not they are sound. But while your moral 
judgments stand, you may not regulate your conduct 
by what others approve or disapprove. Public opin- 
ion, of which we are making so much to-day, is gener- 
ally a very beneficent influence. But you can easily 
see that it tends to usurp the place of conscience. 
What others think right or wrong has nothing what- 
ever to do with your conduct. Only what you think 
right or wrong obtains the slightest consideration in 
the court of your own conscience. That is true whether 
conscience demands a greater restraint than others 
seem to practise, or whether it confers a liberty that 



22 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

others do not seem to enjoy. Others say a certain 
thing is right, that they have no scruples against it, 
and therefore that you may do it if you will. But 
you think it is wrong, and your conscience bids you 
refrain. Your conscience is the supreme authority 
with you. Others say that a certain thing is wrong, 
and therefore you must not do it. But you believe it 
is right, and therefore you may do it without reproach, 
unless you consent to deprive yourself in order not to 
give offense. Neither your duty nor your liberty is 
to be judged by the consciences of other people. 

Conscience May Not Be Lent. — The disposition 
to lend conscience has been as mischievous as the in- 
clination to borrow one. The persecutions and mar- 
tyrdoms of all ages have been inspired by the desire 
of uncompromising men to impose their consciences 
upon their fellows. They have said in effect: "These 
things which you practise are wrong according to our 
judgment; they offend our consciences, and therefore 
you must not do them." What these men failed to 
see was that conscience is an individual affair, whose 
commands and judgments are laid upon their pos- 
sessor, but upon nobody else. 

Conscience is indeed very exacting and intolerant as 
regards the conduct of its individual possessor, but it 
does not lead to intolerance toward others. It may 
be one's duty to dissent from views which one hears 
expressed, or to make known one's disapproval- of the 
conduct of others; it may even be one's duty to in- 
terfere with the actions of others. But the determi- 
nation of such questions belongs properly to the sphere 



CONSCIENCE 23 

of the moral judgments. Conscience has fulfilled its 
function when it regulates the conduct of its individual 
possessor. 

Consciences Are Not Always in Agreement. — It is 
clear then that different consciences may disagree as 
to specific acts. What is right for one is wrong for 
another. What is right for one at one period in his life 
may be wrong for the same person at another period 
in his life. Saint Paul excuses himself for certain acts 
of his early life because they were performed in all 
good conscience. He thought they were right at the 
time, and so for him at that time they were right. 
Later enlightenment convinced him that they were 
wrong, and then his conscience forbade them. 

It must be granted that terrible things have been 
done in the name of conscience. Sometimes the ex- 
planation may be that when men wanted to do these 
things they persuaded themselves that it was their duty 
to do them. Be sure that duty is very often the mask 
and the excuse for inclination or self-interest. But 
those who have done terrible things in the name of 
conscience have not always been hypocrites. When 
the Indian mother cast her child to the crocodiles we 
may be sure that she thought she must do it because 
it was right. If she was honest in that conviction, and 
she must have been, then it was right for her, horrible 
as the act appears to us and horrible as it must have 
been for her. Her conscience demanded the unnat- 
ural sacrifice; our consciences revolt at it. The thing 
that was right for her is fearfully wrong to us. 

Strictly speaking, however, these differences are 



24 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

again in the sphere of the moral judgment. All con- 
sciences do say precisely the same thing; they say: 
Do what is right, abstain from what is wrong. But 
each conscience says it to its individual possessor, and 
therefore the acts to which conscience incites us are 
not precisely the same for all persons at all times. 
There are degrees of moral enlightenment, and there 
are differences of honest opinion. It is the duty of 
every person to be fully assured in his own mind on 
all matters of duty involving a distinction between 
right and wrong. But conscience as an individual 
affair only bids each one live up to the best light he 
has, and to guide his conduct by that light without 
respect for the moral judgments or the practices of 
others. Conscience brings home to us our individual 
accountability for all our own actions. 

Conscience Is the Master Architect in Building 
Character. — The highest achievement, the goal of all 
right living, is character. That describes the best 
that one can make of himself. To be, not to seem or 
pretend — to be that which is most desirable, a person 
of intrinsic worth, of conscious rectitude, of pure aims ! 
There are many things to be done in this world, but 
nothing else comparable in its value or the satisfactions 
it yields, to the building of character. That is the work 
we are busied with, or are neglecting, every moment. 

Acts tend to form habits, and habits make character, 
good or bad. The responsibility laid upon the indi- 
vidual for himself and his conduct of life is very heavy; 
the task that is set to him is stupendous, and the prob- 
lems to be solved are bewildering. It would all be 



CONSCIENCE 25 

hopelessly impossible were it not for this mysterious 
and wonderful monitor which never leaves us with- 
out its infallible and imperious counsels — conscience. 
It is the master architect of character-building. It 
brings the test of sincerity to every act. It is the un- 
failing guide of us all through the untravelled wilder- 
ness before us. Is it a safe guide? Yes, the safest 
guide we have. At every strange turning of the way, 
at every new perplexity, it is as if conscience had been 
there before — there in the new to-morrow wherein 
never man's foot was set before, unbewildered, un- 
hesitant in every crisis, as though moving over fa- 
miliar ground. Is this indeed not a wonder and a 
mystery? Our only safety, our only certainty is in 
heeding this still small voice that whispers forever 
within the soul. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Wordsworth's Ode to Duty. This great poem might be memo- 
rized. Launcelot Gobbo's soliloquy in Merchant of Venice, Act 
II, Scene II. Addison's The Guardian, No. 135. 



CHAPTER III 

THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 

The Young King's Prayer.— There is a familiar story 
of a prince who came to the throne when he was very 
young. He had a dream in which God appeared to 
him and asked him what he desired. He answered: 
"Give thy servant an understanding heart, that I 
may discern between good and evil." Solomon's 
dream-prayer is the wisest prayer ever offered by a 
young man. It asked for that which is supremely 
important. It might fittingly be placed conspicuously 
on the walls of our schools and colleges, to remind us 
that the intellectual education of which we make so 
much is a vain thing without the knowledge which 
goes directly to the formation of character and the 
making of a better world. 

Civilization Began with the Knowledge of Good and 
Evil. — Civilization did not start with the dawn of 
secular knowledge, and it does not advance by mere 
virtue of intellectual enlightenment, by mere progress 
in science. Civilization started when men began to 
discern between good and evil, and its exhaustless im- 
pulse is an ever unsatisfied demand for righteous- 
ness, a demand whose pressure increases as men yield 
to it. The comforting thing about the world we live 
in is not that it has unlocked the secrets of nature, 

26 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 27 

not that it knows more about the physical universe 
than it used to know, but that it has higher standards 
of conduct, that it practises more justice and kindness, 
that its moral ideals are finer. 

The two watchwords of our time are science and 
righteousness. Both are good; but we all know that 
of the two righteousness is the better, whether for the 
well-being of society at large or for the happiness and 
usefulness of the individual. Both rest upon knowl- 
edge — science upon the knowledge of things and laws 
as they are, righteousness upon the knowledge which 
distinguishes between good and evil. 

The Moral Judgment Is Developed by Experience. 
— In the last chapter I drew the distinction between 
conscience and the moral judgment. Conscience is 
the demand that we live up to the best light we have, 
and it is the judgment that is promptly rendered 
within the soul, approving or condemning our action. 
The moral judgment is that best light by which con- 
science shapes its demands and renders its decisions. 
Conscience is altogether spontaneous; it is a constant, 
changeless voice within the soul, outside of all human 
influence and control. The moral judgment, on the 
other hand, is a matter of education and environ- 
ment. Conscience demands that we do what is right 
and avoid what is wrong. The moral judgment is 
our knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. 
It is subject to all the complex influences of tradition, 
association, education, and environment. Like all 
other knowledge, it is built out of the experience, ob- 
servation, and reflection of the race through long ages, 



28 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

supplemented, like other knowledge again, by our own 
experience, observation, and reflection. 

It is true that the fundamental moralities seem to 
be intuitive, as native to the soul as conscience itself. 
That it is wrong to lie, to steal, to kill, seems so primary 
that all men in all stages of their development must 
have known it. However that may be, it is certain 
that the infinite application of these primary moralities 
to the complex problems of life is subject to influences 
which reach us out of the past and the present. 

We Start with the Moral Judgments of Our En- 
vironment. — The stock of moral judgments with which 
you start in life is essentially that of your own com- 
munity, and especially of your own family, your own 
parents. You accept, with more or less of question, 
the judgments which come to you unsought. In other 
words, you are taught what is right and what is wrong. 
Your knowledge of good and evil is part of that edu- 
cation in life which begins with the very dawn of 
memory, and by subtle and imperceptible stages es- 
tablishes itself in your moral nature. It may seem 
therefore that this knowledge of good and evil is 
easily and cheaply got. But there is no knowledge 
that is purchased at so fearful a cost as the knowledge 
of good and evil. It seems cheap to us only because 
so much of the price has been paid by past genera- 
tions. Others have lived, and sinned, and suffered: 
out of their painful and often disastrous experience 
they learned to discern between right and wrong, and 
passed the results of their experiments in morals on 
to us. The homely saying that " the burnt child avoids 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 29 

the fire" suggests the whole history of moral educa- 
tion. The stock of morals with which we begin life is 
made up of the accumulated experience of the past. 
In this, as in other things, we are 

"The heirs of all the ages." 

Of course it is our right to examine these moral 
judgments that are furnished to us ready-made — it is 
our duty to do so. The past has not discovered all 
its mistakes. But while we may and must question 
those precepts handed down to us which are not self- 
evident, we should always remember that few, if any 
of them, have been arbitrarily formed; that they come 
out of a great experience; that they have been tested 
in the hot fires of life. 

We Learn by Our Own Mistakes. — Moreover, the 
price of this knowledge has not all been paid for us. 
From our earliest years we have been paying the 
price ourselves. You remember your childhood's 
transgressions, and the punishment, or at least the 
admonition they called forth. Do you know that in 
that discipline of the home you were rehearsing in 
advance and by way of preparation the whole after 
history of your life? You were acquiring then the 
knowledge of good and evil, and the education goes on. 

There is another familiar story from the same source 
as the one with which I began this chapter, which is 
here in point. A man and a woman were placed in a 
beautiful and fruitful garden where nature ministered 
abundantly to all their wants. They were told that of 
all the trees in the garden they might eat, save only 



30 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They 
disobeyed the command, and ate of the forbidden tree. 
Then their eyes were opened and they knew good and evil. 
Whether that be history or fable, it is the truest story 
ever written down. It is the story of every life that 
has ever been lived. It is the disaster of experience 
that opens the eyes to discern between good and evil. 
It is inevitable that every one shall learn for himself 
and from his own mistakes. And so it is true 

"That men may rise on stepping-stones 
Of their dead selves to higher things." 

It appears to be true that the knowledge of good and 
evil has been acquired by the experience, long contin- 
ued and often repeated, of those who have made the 
practical experiment of both good and evil. If in any 
particular you reject the testimony of the past, and 
try the experiment over for yourself, you are likely to 
come to the same conclusion as those who have ex- 
perimented before you. The wilful child can easily 
find out for himself that fire will burn, and when he 
tries to find out he always succeeds. So our new ex- 
periments always verify the old commandments. 

The Distinction Between Good and Evil Is Most 
Real. — This means for us that the distinction be- 
tween good and evil is real, that it is built into the 
fabric of the world as we find it. It is not merely 
theoretical, and it is not arbitrary. In the region of 
morals, as truly as in that of physical science, you are 
dealing with facts, not with myths, sentiments, or 
arbitrary prejudices. It is true that myths, senti- 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 31 

merits, and prejudices have colored the moralities by 
which men have lived, and very likely they continue 
to influence our moral standards. There have been 
many arbitrary precepts written into the moral teach- 
ing of the world. Even questions of taste and enjoy- 
ment have had an influence, and men have tried to set 
up barriers against the things they did not like by 
declaring them wrong. Superstitious guesses as to 
things which have brought good or evil fortune have 
contributed their share. It is not necessary to give 
heed to every declaration as to what is right and what 
is wrong, for there is a good deal that is artificial mixed 
in with the moral standards of every time. Never- 
theless, back of all the mistake, the superstition, and 
the imposition there is the great reality, abundantly 
tested out in the long experience of the race. There 
are things that of necessity are useful because they 
are right, and there are things that are always hurt- 
ful because they are wrong. 

Laws Are Made to Protect Society Against the In- 
dividual. — However, the advantage of right does not 
always come in the first instance to the one who has 
done right, nor the harm of wrong to the one who has 
done evil. Others are to be considered in the framing 
of our moral standards. For instance, theft may seem 
to be immediately profitable to the thief. It is injuri- 
ous to him, and deeply injurious, but the first injury 
appears to be done to those whom he robs. So the 
laws are made to protect society against the indi- 
vidual. Theft, falsehood, and murder are forbidden 
because they are obviously injurious to other people. 



32 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

They violate the principle of justice, which involves 
an obligation to others. This obligation is mutual, 
and so the question of self-interest comes in. We agree 
to respect each other's rights. We will not wrong our 
neighbor in his property, good name, or life, with the 
understanding that he will not wrong us. In order 
that we may enjoy our own rights we must concede 
to others their rights. But this consideration of self- 
interest only enables us to see more clearly where 
true justice lies. The tacit agreement is not a mere 
convenience; it is a recognition of fundamental jus- 
tice. 

The Doer of Wrong Suffers Injury in His Own Char- 
acter; the One Wronged Does Not. — But we see at 
once that there is a difference between the wrong done 
to others and the wrong done to self. To steal from 
another does not affect his character; it does not de- 
grade the man, but only deprives him of something 
that belongs to him. The thief himself suffers a far 
deeper injury; he degrades himself by his own act. 
The one who is robbed may obtain restitution, or in 
some other way have his loss made good. But how 
shall the thief obtain compensation for the loss of self- 
respect and the self-degradation of his own act? So 
the moral standards which are partially reflected in 
the laws have a deeper origin and a greater signifi- 
cance than the mere perception of a mutual interest. 
The great experience which is behind them testifies 
that right is ennobling and wrong degrading. The 
question of profit and loss goes back of property and 
good name, and even life, to the greater moral values. 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 33 

The knowledge of good and evil discovers the distinc- 
tion between that which is good for the man, which 
makes him larger, nobler, and that which is evil for 
the man because it makes him smaller and meaner. 
The history of morals is the history of evolution feeling 
about to discover the things that will help in the de- 
velopment of the human race, and, of course, seeking 
also to discover the things that retard or obstruct 
that development. 

Good Is in Accordance with the Intention of the 
Universe. — Sir Oliver Lodge, the distinguished scien- 
tist, has published a little catechism from which I will 
quote one question with its answer. 

Question: What is meant by good and evil f 

Answer: Good is that which promotes development and is in 
harmony with the will of God. It is akin to health and beauty and 
happiness. Evil is that which retards or frustrates development, and 
injures some part of the universe. It is akin to disease and ugli- 
ness and misery. 

Whether or not that definition is adequate, it is 
surely good as far as it goes. Good is normal and nat- 
ural; evil is abnormal and unnatural. Have you 
ever heard it put the other way round, that sin is the 
natural thing to which all human beings are prone as 
the sparks to fly upward, and that virtue is achieved 
by a miracle that suppresses or overcomes nature? 

But what do we mean by the word " natural' ' ? Do 
we not mean the thing that is in accord with the in- 
tention and laws of the universe? To be sure, both 
good and evil are in the universe, and therefore in 



34 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

human nature, which is an integral part of the uni- 
verse. But the manifest intention of the universe is 
friendly to the good and hostile to the evil; its laws 
are framed for the promotion of the good and the sup- 
pression or punishment of the evil. 

The Quality of Acts Is Known by Their Effects. — 
But the knowledge of good and evil — how shall we 
come by it? "Good is that which promotes develop- 
ment. Evil is that which retards or frustrates develop- 
ment." We can tell when we are growing; we can 
tell when our growth is halted, when we are stunted. 
In the one instance our clothes become too small for 
us; in the other they continue a good fit. Can't we 
tell when we are growing spiritually? We have to 
change our habits, in which we become cramped. And 
you remember that the word "habit" has a double 
meaning; it means customary action, and it means a 
garment. Our habits are the garments of our souls. 
We can tell when we are growing, and we can discover 
very easily the things which are wholesome and fav- 
orable to healthy growth, and also the things which 
disagree with our souls. The things therefore which 
increase our moral stature, which build us up and 
make our life nobler are good. The things which re- 
tard our development are evil. 

Development Is Necessary to Satisfy Our Own Na- 
ture. — There is a certain subtle satisfaction experi- 
enced in development, and an equally subtle disap- 
pointment in the arrest of development. You have 
heard of "growing pains." That is one of the ancient 
mistakes. There is no such a thing as a "growing 



THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL 35 

pain." The pain that is so called is really rheumatic 
or neuralgic. Growth is not painful; it is the disease 
which checks growth that hurts. 

And so, to go back to our definition again, the good 
"is akin to health, beauty, and happiness"; the evil 
" is akin to disease, ugliness, and misery." The suffer- 
ing which comes to the soul in consequence of evil 
purposes and wrong actions has its counterpart in the 
soul's pleasure which follows upright intention and 
noble conduct. The joy of being greater and the 
humiliation of arrested progress combine to inform us 
of the distinction between good and evil. Whatever 
helps us to larger and happier life is good; whatever 
hinders and hurts is evil. By which we learn that the 
great purpose of the universe and its laws, so far as we 
are concerned, is our own well-being. Therefore, for us 
there is no knowledge so important as the knowledge 
of good and evil. 

The Law of Contrasts. — Why need there be both 
good and evil in the universe? Why is it laid upon 
us to thread our way through the confusions of a 
mixed life, distinguishing between good and evil, and 
having to make our choice? Because it has to be so. 
There must be contrasts or there would be no qualities 
at all. You can't have a stick with only one end, nor 
a board with only one side. In order that there shall 
be good there must be evil to distinguish it and set it 
off. In order that there shall be the knowledge of good 
there must be the knowledge of evil. If you are to 
make a right choice there must be the possibility of a 
wrong choice. The necessity is inherent in the very 



36 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

nature of things. Out of this necessity the moral life 
is built. 

Without the conflict of these contrasting opposites 
there could be neither morality nor immorality, for 
there would be neither good nor evil. But the conflict 
begins with the perception of the difference between 
the two. I have said that civilization began when men 
began to distinguish between good and evil. Civiliza- 
tion goes on its way as the distinction becomes finer 
and standards of conduct become more exacting. Like- 
wise the growth of the individual soul begins with the 
moral distinctions, and it goes on by means of the 
education and the discipline which make the distinc- 
tions clearer. There is no knowledge of equal value, 
none of equal importance to the decisions and the 
actions which develop character. "Give thy servant 
an understanding heart, that I may discern between 
good and evil. ,, 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BATTLE OF LIFE 

The Presence of Both Good and Evil in the World 
Makes Conflict. — One of the first things we find out 
about the world in which we live is that it is not a 
peaceable world. As long ago as we can remember, 
and before we can remember, our wills met with op- 
position, and we began to fight our way. We ob- 
served, too, as soon as we began to take account of such 
things, that other people were having the same ex- 
perience, and not only people, but their meaner kin- 
dred — the beasts and birds. It was the way of the 
world. 

So in classical pagan thought there was always 
strife among the gods. The pagans built their gods 
of very human stuff, and so represented them as a 
quarrelsome lot. At one important point they failed 
to carry human analogies into the affairs of the gods; 
their gods were not moral, and so the moral struggle 
was lacking. The strife of the gods was without dig- 
nity and without nobility; it was merely the strife of 
conflicting passions and interests, without moral sig- 
nificance. But if pagan mythology was without moral 
distinctions, pagan thought was not, and pagan life 
was not. 

Men have always recognized a moral significance in 
37 



38 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

the struggle of life. They have seen, more or less 
clearly, that there are two antagonistic forces in the 
world, and, therefore, in human life; the one they have 
called good, and the other they have called evil. So 
distinct are the forces that the ancient Zoroastrian, 
rising above the crude mythologies of the various races, 
thought there must be two gods, a good god and an 
evil god, contending for the supremacy of the world. 
In the belief in God and the devil at conflict with each 
other, we may easily recognize this ancient notion sur- 
viving to-day. It is a simple solution of the moral 
mystery of the world, and it is useful as an illustration 
of what we know to be true, that the world is inhabited 
by both good and evil, and that life is made up of a 
struggle between the two. In a world all bad there 
might be strife and suffering, but there could be no 
moral conflict. In a world all good there might still 
be something to do, but there could be no moral 
struggle. It is in a world part bad and part good that 
the battle is joined. 

The Good and Evil Are Also in the Individual. — 
However, we are not to think of either the good or 
the evil as wholly external to ourselves. We are made 
up out of the universe, and something of all its ele- 
ments clings to us. We are a part of the universe, 
composed out of its stuff, and so have in us something 
of the good and something of the evil. The individual 
is always duplex — is two men — a good man and a bad 
man, and the two are at enmity. 

The anonymous man spoke truly if a little nastily, 
who said that although he had been married but once, 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 39 

he was a bigamist. He had two wives, the one beauti- 
ful and kind and good — that was the woman he was 
in love with; the other ill-tempered and vixenish — that 
was the woman he quarrelled with. The obvious retort 
of his wife was that she also was a bigamist. She had 
one husband who was strong and gentle and generous, 
and another who was petulant, impatient, and exact- 
ing. Perhaps you can remember your mother asking 
in her wise and cunning way: "What has become of 
my good little boy ? He has gone away, and a naughty 
little boy has come to take his place." That was one 
of your first lessons in moral distinctions. 

When we get a glimpse of ourselves as others see us 
it is likely to be surprising. Sometimes it is irritating, 
and sometimes it is embarrassing; it depends upon 
which of our two selves is in the spot-light. When 
your character is drawn by an unloving hand, you 
think, and are likely to say: "0 no, I am not so bad 
as all that." And when your character is drawn by 
an overpartial hand, you will think, but you may not 
have the grace to say: "0 no, I am not so good as 
that." In both instances you are probably right, but 
neither your enemy nor your friend is wholly wrong. 
The proper thing to say to the one who misjudges you 
is something like this: "You are seeing only one side of 
me; I have two sides; kindly go around and look at 
the other side." That was the meaning of the old tale 
of Hercules at the Crossways, and of the new tale of 
Doctor Jehyll and Mr. Hyde. You may, like the two 
Dromios, look yourself in the face, and see on the one 
side the smile of a saint and on the other the leer of a 



40 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

devil, but both with the unmistakable features of your- 
self. And you may be puzzled sometimes to know 
which of the two is most really yourself. There are 
two voices counselling different things and forever 
putting us at odds with ourselves. " Budge," says the 
fiend. "Budge not," says conscience. And alas, like 
Gobbo, we often conclude that "the fiend gives the 
more friendly counsel." 

There Is Good in Everybody. — All this means that 
within one's own soul there is constant warfare, that 
every man has his struggle to make, no matter which 
way he goes. People sometimes seem to think that it 
is only the one who is trying to be good who has his 
struggle to make, that it is only the evil nature that 
has to be fought. No, but the one who is getting 
worse has also his struggle, his fight against the good 
there is in him. It has been so thoroughly taught and 
preached that there is evil in everybody that I suppose 
we all believe it. I never heard anybody deny it. A 
more hopeful word, and one no less true, is that there 
is good in everybody. 

Charles Dickens performed a great service for us 
by taking us into the places of poverty, into the haunts 
of sin and vice, to show us that in these darkest spots 
some noble virtue and love are found. Unfortunately 
he detracted from that service by depicting some peo- 
ple hopelessly and wearisomely good, and others irre- 
deemably bad. This last is not true to the facts. Lit- 
erary and dramatic purpose often deals arbitrarily 
with the realities. I think there never was really an 
Iago, a Mephistopheles, a Bill Sikes, a Daniel Quilp — 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 41 

a man with no spark of good remaining. It is prob- 
ably true, as Lowell has sung, that 

"At the door 
Of foulest hearts, the angel nature yet 
Knocks to return, and cancel all the debt." 

In this universal good is the single ray of hope we have 
for the worst man. There is something good there to 
work on, something that may thrill to the touch of 
kindness, something that will respond to the appeal 
to conscience. 

There Is Evil in Everybody. — And there is also some- 
thing of the devil in every man. I am not thinking of 
the personal tempter now. We ought to give the devil 
his due, and he is made the scapegoat for a vast deal 
of very human wrong-doing. It is the evil nature in 
us, warring against the higher law of the spirit. Of 
course we concede that there is no man perfect; but 
that does not sufficiently express things. We need 
to see that there is some positive bad in every man, 
some aggressive evil, even in the best of men. That 
is to say that we need to understand that goodness 
means something, wherever we see it, that it cost 
something and still costs something, that virtue is al- 
ways another name for victory. It is easy for some 
people to be good? Don't you believe it! That is 
but the poor apology that cowardice makes for itself. 

It is worth while to know this, for in the day that you 
must make your fight, if you think that others have 
got victory in a cheaper market, it will discourage you 
from paying her tremendous price; if you know that 



42 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

none has got her at a lower rate it will hearten you to 
tell down the coin. It is highly important for us to 
know that the best men do not find goodness easy, 
that they have to fight for all they get and achieve 
all they are. 

There Is Fighting for Us Whichever Way We Go. — 
This is the practical meaning of the moral duality in 
human nature, that all life is a warfare between the 
good and the evil in us. And there is no discharge in 
this war. This is what we have before us all the days 
of our life. But what I want to emphasize just now 
is that this is what is before us whichever way we go. 
It is hard to be good ? Yes, but it is hard to be any- 
thing more than mere moral protoplasm; it is hard 
even to be bad. The notion that sin is only negative 
while virtue is positive, that to go wrong is only to 
drift, while to go right is to struggle against the cur- 
rent, is a mischievous notion, and it is not quite true. 

A wise man long ago summed up his long experience 
and his wise observation in the saying: "The way of 
the transgressor is hard." In some sense it may ap- 
pear easier to go wrong than to go right. But in a 
deeper sense it is harder to go wrong than to go right; 
it involves a struggle with a more formidable antago- 
nist within. Conscience is a stubborn and persistent 
fighter, hard to put down. The price of sin has to be 
paid as well as the price of virtue. Great effort is ac- 
tually put forth, and grave discomforts are endured 
in the acquiring of bad habits as well as in the 
achieving of good habits. If there is a young man 
reading this chapter who has learned to smoke, or 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 43 

tried to learn to smoke, he will understand what I 
mean. If there is some one reading this chapter who 
has ever done a grievous wrong, and who remembers 
the struggle he made with his own conscience and the 
remorse he suffered afterward, he will understand still 
better what I mean. There is no escape from the 
fight and the suffering by yielding to temptation. 

We Cannot Escape the Struggle Because We Cannot 
Escape from Ourselves. — A story is told, apocryphal 
perhaps, as so many of the war stories are, that in one 
of the battles of the Civil War an officer found a sol- 
dier who was evidently detached from his command, 
and quite as evidently bent on continuing the detach- 
ment. "What are you doing here?" the officer asked. 
"Well," replied the soldier, with a feeble attempt at 
humor, "I am trying my best to find the rear of this 
army, but it doesn't seem to have any." There are 
many people, young and old, who are trying to find the 
rear in this battle of life, some safe place where life 
will be easy. Fond and anxious parents are always 
seeking such a place for their children. But there is 
no such place, no spot of snug and secure neutrality. 
There is none because the embattled armies are within, 
and one can't get away from himself. The old her- 
mits used to go away into the wilderness, and the 
monks entered the monasteries, seeking escape from 
the world and temptation. But they met the enemy 
in the wilderness and in the cloister, because they took 
him with them. In a thousand encloistered retreats, 
men and' women have sought hiding from peril and 
surcease of struggle, but always in vain. We cannot 



44 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

escape from the world, because we cannot escape from 
ourselves. 

The Moral Struggle Is Necessary for the Develop- 
ment of Character. — I have heard that war is neces- 
sary to develop and maintain the heroic qualities. I 
wonder where people can live who can say such a 
thing as that! I have thought that all of us have 
enough demand upon our courage and strength with- 
out getting in the way of bullets. If ever you find life 
provokingly easy, and feel the need of a fight to tone 
you up, there are plenty of social wrongs for you to 
attack, plenty of weak and worsted brothers for you 
to champion, without going into bloody war. I have 
been wearied by men telling me how hard it is for a 
man to go right in business as things are in the world 
to-day, and then having the same men tell me at 
another time that the world needs a butchery once in 
a while in order to preserve the virile virtues. 

It is true, no doubt, that we need something to fight; 
but it is equally true that we always have it. Of 
course it is a good thing that we always do have it. 
As things are, a life that is full of hazard and a spirit 
that is alert are better than a peaceful life and an in- 
active soul. Indeed, I am persuaded that a sinful 
world, fighting with its sin, is better than would be a 
world in which there was nothing to fight against and 
nothing to fight for. 

Somewhere deep in the woods there is a placid pool, 
rarely or never stirred by a breath of wind. The 
storms sweep over and around it, but never disturb its 
profound and peaceful repose. But what is it good 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 45 

for ? It is moving no mill-wheels, bearing no burdens. 
It breeds disease. Take up a cupful of its water and 
drink — Bah! Stagnant! Putrid! And only because 
there was nothing to stir it up! And that is surely 
what would happen to a man with nothing to disturb 
the repose of his indolent soul; that is what would 
happen to society without the tumult and the strife, 
the incessant warfare that is upon earth. The ocean 
is kept sweet because it is constantly stirred by the 
tides and lashed by the storms. 

Social rest and quiet may mean, and often have 
meant, only the secure triumph of social wrong, while 
social unrest may mean the awaking of conscience, the 
stir of intelligence, and the promise of a better day. 
Better war even than lack of the stuff out of which to 
make war. Better strife than death, better tumult 
than stagnation! Far better this warfare within the 
soul, with its temptation and peril, its struggle and 
weariness, than a state of moral unconsciousness. It 
takes all this strife to keep men alive and moving, to 
strip them of their soft garments and drive them out 
of their ease, to develop their powers and bring them 
up to their appointed heroic stature — in a word, to 
finish the making of a man. 

The Fighting Qualities Should Not Be Wasted.— I 
am against war, but not against fighting; I am against 
killing, but not against hitting and hitting hard. I 
am against war, partly because it is a perversion of 
valor and a waste of ammunition. We need all this 
heroism and sacrifice for the battle against sin and 
vice, against disease and the cruel wrongs of man- 



46 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

kind; we need them for the making of men, not for 
the unmaking of men. Very properly we do not think 
much of the man who has no fight in him, who is con- 
tent with himself as he is, and with the world as it is, 
who is never hot with shame and righteous wrath at 
his own folly, his fist never clinched, his hand never 
lifted to right the world's many wrongs. He is a 
shabby creature, deserving of contempt, but also de- 
serving of pity; for he is not living life to the full, is 
not having the grand time he might enjoy. 

The Joy of Battle. — The glories of war are fading 
as science is turning it into a methodical, horrible, 
reeking business. But its appeal to the imagination 
still lingers. There is a natural and essentially noble 
exhilaration in the prospect of a battle. I have never 
seen a football game that I did not wish I could be in 
it myself. I have examined that feeling as honestly 
as I could, and the result is that I am not ashamed of 
it. There is a noble joy in strife that comes out of 
the fact that we are all born warriors, sent forth to 
the battle of life, just as we are all born workers, sent 
forth to the tasks of life. Of course we all long for 
peace occasionally, just as we all desire rest when we 
are weary. But the greater joy is in the combat as it 
is in the work. We have almost unbounded admira- 
tion for the great fighters. It would help us greatly 
if we could realize the grandeur of our own warfare 
and the splendor of our own victories. This conflict 
into which we are thrust is no blunder of the Creator, 
nor a slip in his plans. It is not an accident of life, 
but the very chiefest thing for which we are here, to 



THE BATTLE OF LIFE 47 

fight the good fight, and lay hold on the life which is 
eternal. I commend to you some noble lines of Brown- 
ing, which occur in his "Easter Day." 

"And so I live, you see, 
Go through the world, try, prove, reject, 
Prefer, still struggling to effect 
My warfare; happy that I can 
Be crossed and thwarted as a man, 
Not left in God's contempt apart, 
With ghastly smooth life, dead at heart, 
Tame in earth's paddock as her prize." 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

By all means read Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert 
Louis Stevenson. Browning's Epilogue. Wordsworth's Char- 
acter of the Happy Warrior. 



CHAPTER V 

THE GRAND ADVENTURE 

True Sense of the Saying: " Be Good and You Will 
Be Happy." — The burden of a great deal of the coun- 
sel given to young people is expressed in the familiar 
adage: "Be good and you will be happy." We are 
much disposed to warn you against the seductive perils 
of sin, and point you to the security of virtue. You 
see we want you to be good, and we want you to be 
happy. You also, beyond a doubt, want to be good 
and you want to be happy. But suppose you can't 
be both, which would you choose ? 

Now in a very real and profound sense it is true that 
if you are good you will also be happy; and when you 
have found out for yourselves that sense of happiness 
you will have found life glorified. But you will also 
have found that within the meaning of that happiness 
are included many disappointments, many seeming 
failures, and much that is commonly called sorrow. 

Obviously this is not what we understand by the 
happiness that is promised as the reward of virtue. 
We understand rather that superficial happiness which 
means prosperous days, successful efforts, the applause 
of the world, pleasures, and laughter. In that sense it 
is not certainly true that if you are good you will be 
happy. That will appear at once if you think of those 

48 



THE GRAND ADVENTURE 49 

who are held up before you as examples of good and 
noble living. Some of them, at least, enjoyed very lit- 
tle that this world is accustomed to call happiness. 

Righteousness Is a Grand Adventure. — So in this 
chapter I wish to present to you the life of virtue in 
the aspect of a grand adventure, beset with perils, and 
whose end, so far as this world is concerned, no man 
can foresee. To revert to the homely incident with 
which I introduced these talks, while I have been over 
the years which you are to traverse, and am familiar 
with their problems and their perils, yet I have never 
been where you are going — nobody has ever been there. 
It is an undiscovered country, and must remain so 
until you arrive. You are going into a wilderness 
which, until you shall come, has been untrodden by 
the foot of man. You are to face new problems, new 
trials, new temptations, which are all your own, never 
met with before, at least never in the precise form in 
which you will meet them. Your experiences are to 
be as fresh and novel to you as if you were the first 
person that ever lived in the world. You are to build 
your life out of stuff that has never before been worked. 
You do not travel in beaten paths, but you make your 
road as you go. The experience of those who are older 
enables them to predict with some confidence some of 
the things you will find. But we cannot foresee all or 
even much of what you are to see. Each life begins 
a new adventure into the unknown. 

It Is the Good Men Who Take Chances.— But it 
might be supposed that the same laws will prevail to- 
morrow that prevailed yesterday; that the like causes 



50 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

will produce the like effects always. That is true. 
We can say that he that takes fire in his bosom will be 
burned, and he that touches pitch will be defiled. But 
we can't say that a good man will be prosperous, or 
that a good woman will make a happy marriage. 
These things were not always true yesterday, and we 
have no assurance that they will always be true to- 
morrow. The causes of these superficial aspects of 
happiness are not to be found in virtue. They seem 
to be found sometimes in the very things which are 
wrong. 

So the real hazard of the Great Adventure is reserved 
for those whose first concern is to be right, not to be 
happy. The one who is willing to take a crooked way 
may avoid the hills; the one who goes straight cannot. 
What we call success is very often the reward of un- 
scrupulous practices. If you play the game fairly 
you may be beaten. If you must make sure of win- 
ning, you will cheat. It is the good man who takes 
the chances; bad men take none. It is the good man 
who risks something for a principle, for a cause, who 
is ever putting his prospects at hazard. It is the bad 
man who is prudent and calculating, who sees what 
he wants and goes directly for it, suffering no scruples 
to balk him of his purpose. As life is, failure and dis- 
appointment are always possible, and it is the fear of 
these that makes dastards and fools of men. It is the 
hope of reward that corrupts manhood and poisons the 
springs of life. 

It Is the Results of Wrong that Can Be Calculated 
in Advance. — When you get out into life the tempta- 



THE GRAND ADVENTURE 51 

tion will confront you in some such forms as these: 
If you do right in business you may lose a customer or 
a profit. You may as well have the customer and the 
profit as the house across the street. As a lawyer, if 
you are perfectly honest and candid, you may lose a 
client. Since the man is determined to indulge in the 
luxury of the law anyway, you may as well have him 
as the firm across the corridor. As a physician, if you 
tell the unvarnished truth, you may lose the hypochon- 
driac patient. And, since she is determined to have 
treatment from somebody, you may as well have her 
money as the practitioner down the street. If you 
hold your pen sacred from the pollution of falsehood 
and filth, your copy may go into the waste-basket. 
If you do right, you may lose your position. If you 
do right, you may lose friends, influence, reputation, 
and other things of value. 

In a word, doing right is an exceeding venturesome 
thing, and if you would make sure of success and 
profit and a secure and peaceable life you must do the 
obvious things that are demanded. There is a way 
to compass your ends if no scruples are in the way. 
But submit yourself absolutely and unwaveringly to 
the guidance of high principles and nobody knows 
what will happen. The real adventurer of the world is 
the one who walks the darkness of life by his faith in 
righteousness, not knowing whither he is going. 

You see we can calculate the results of wrong-doing, 
but we can never be sure of the results of right-doing, 
that is, the immediate results, of course. You can 
tell how the loaded dice are going to turn up. If you 



52 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

would see your way and be sure of the consequences, 
you must take the right and the wrong indifferently 
as they come. Plainly enough it is sin that is weak 
and cowardly and safe. It is righteousness that is 
strong and brave and in everlasting peril. 

Danger is Naturally Attractive, and to the Best Part 
of Us. — This is as it should be. We were made to be 
adventurers or we should never have been set upon 
this wonderful journey into the wilderness. That is 
the interpretation put upon life by the romance of 
virtue, when it bids us walk by faith and not by sight, 
to be guided by ideals, not by sordid calculations, to 
take no thought for the morrow, to be careful for noth- 
ing, and that he that recklessly loses his life, the same 
shall save the only life worth having. It is a pity that 
the matter has been so much represented the other 
way round, with threats to frighten us away from sin, 
or promised rewards to bribe us into goodness. It is 
a pity because it appeals to the wrong part of us, to 
selfishness, to cowardice, to cupidity. I am not at all 
afraid to present things to you as I am doing, because 
I am sure that you are not too timid to face the facts. 

The high instincts of the adventurer are in us from 
the start. Tell a small boy that it is dangerous to climb 
trees, and if he is a healthy and normal boy, he will be 
climbing trees before night. The very thing you have 
set up to frighten him is the thing that attracts him, 
and that ought to attract him. Some good people have 
almost glorified certain forms of athletic sports by 
representing their danger. If they want young men to 
turn away from football they should tell them that it is 



THE GRAND ADVENTURE 53 

safe. It takes a long and intimate acquaintance with 
the nobler and more perilous adventures of life to tame 
our youthful admiration of the pirate. War is horri- 
ble, not because it is dangerous — indeed it is just be- 
cause it is dangerous that this romance of savagery 
has continued to hold inthralled the imaginations of 
men. Now science is destroying its romance, and the 
machine-gun, the air-ship, and the submarine are mak- 
ing it sneaking and cowardly. So the end is in sight, 
and the age dawns when war shall be no more. 

It Is Delightful Not to Know What Shall Be on the 
Morrow. — We are born adventurers, and crave noth- 
ing so much as something which has a spice of danger 
in it — that is, the healthy and virile among us. Our 
love of life is intensified, and our interest in life main- 
tained by the very fact that we know not what shall 
be on the morrow. So virtue becomes fairly fascinat- 
ing when we understand that it is always taking 
chances. The very zest of life is in the adventure of 
it, the uncertainty, the alluring mystery, "The Grand 
Perhaps," as Browning called it, the continuous jour- 
ney of one who knows not whither he is going. You 
may think that it would be pleasant never to be dis- 
appointed; but that would mean that you could never 
be surprised, that you could never hope again. You 
may think it would be nice to know what will be on 
the morrow; but if you did you would not get out of 
bed; to-morrow would already be as stale as yester- 
day. 

The Uncertainty Saves Virtue from Becoming Sordid. 
— In another respect it is well that the life of virtue 



54 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

should be a life of adventure. If it were invariably 
and obviously true that happiness followed goodness, 
virtue would be reduced to the quality of a commercial 
commodity. If every one could see that it paid to be 
good, and that being bad was unprofitable, virtue 
would lose its nobility; it would cease to be virtue, 
and the world would be bereft of its soul of goodness. 
There would be no credit and little satisfaction in 
doing right if you were sure of being paid for it. Every- 
thing noble is formed in you by your not knowing 
whether or not it pays to do right. 

For instance: a fond mother is conducting an in- 
quisition into the conduct of her little son. She says: 
"Now, dear, tell mother whether you did it or not; 
speak the truth, and I'll give you some candy." Then 
he tells the truth — perhaps. But that is not the way 
of the world, as the son will surely find out when he 
comes to man's estate. Contrast that with this: a 
father is inquiring into some alleged misdemeanor of 
his son. He says: "Come, my boy, out with the 
truth like a man; did you do it or did you not?" 
The boy doesn't know what is going to happen. If he 
confesses he may be punished. The safe and prudent 
course would seem to be to tell a lie. Nevertheless, 
he responds to the appeal to his manhood, and con- 
fesses, not knowing what it is going to cost him. And 
that is the way of the world. That is the way the boy 
will always have to face the stern demand for hon- 
esty and truthfulness. 

Which of these ways, do you think, is better for the 
boy, and which is better for the man, truth for hire, 



THE GRAND ADVENTURE 55 

or truth because it is right? The truth that promises 
to pay, or the truth that is likely to cost? Only one 
answer is possible. 

Sin Has Its Wages: Righteousness Has None. — 
You see that properly speaking it is idle to talk about 
the rewards of virtue. There is no compensation for 
the noble life in any of the common currencies of the 
world. To expect a reward for being good is about 
as reasonable as to expect a reward for being healthy. 
Of course it does pay in a very substantial way to be 
healthy; and in the same substantial way it pays to 
be good. But it is foolish to expect the world to hire 
you to be either healthy or good. Do you know Ten- 
nyson's little poem on Wages? It is short enough 
to quote, and it is worth memorizing. 

"Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song 

Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea — 
Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong — 
Nay, but she aim'd not at glory, no lover of glory she: 
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be. 

The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust, 

Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and 
the fly? 
She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just, 
To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky; 
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die." 

Sin has its wages indeed, but righteousness has no 
wages; it needs none. Just to be is the exceeding great 
reward of virtue. 

Indeed a much more important consideration is that 
it is likely to cost something to do right. If a price 
is to be paid, it is not coming to us as a compensa- 



56 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

tion for being good men and women and for doing 
right things — it is much more likely that we shall have 
to make some sacrifice, to make some payment our- 
selves for the privilege of being good and doing right. 
Virtue often comes very high, but it is always worth 
the price. 

They Who Do Wrong Are Hirelings: They Who Do 
Right Are Freemen. — Sin has its wages; righteous- 
ness has none. Men do right for nothing; they will 
even pay, and pay roundly, for the privilege of doing 
right. But men never do wrong for nothing. When 
one does a wrong thing there is always the justifiable 
presumption that he has been paid for it, or that he 
expects to be paid for it in some sort of coin. When 
one tells a lie, we have to assume that there is some- 
thing to be gained by it. When one tells the truth, 
we never think of imputing a sordid motive. Right- 
eousness is normal; sin is abnormal. The devil offers 
inducements — he has to. It is for the sake of some 
coveted happiness or gain or honor that men do wrong. 
So they who do wrong are hirelings; they who do 
right are the freemen, unhired, unpurchasable. 

Right Is So Infinitely Good in Itself that It Asks No 
Price. — You are going to choose the noble life; your 
first consideration is going to be to do right; you are 
going to be good men and women. Will you also be 
prosperous and happy and honored? I cannot tell; 
nobody can tell. You will have to take your chances. 
You may find righteousness profitable, you may find 
it unprofitable. You will find it infinitely worth 
while, even though it bring poverty and suffering and 



THE GRAND ADVENTURE 57 

dishonor. Indeed, I think that the laws of the market- 
place will hold good here, and that the more virtue 
costs, the more you will find that it is worth. But 
you must make no bargains with your own soul, nor 
cheer it with any foolish promises. You are to be ad- 
venturers, like Ulysses's men of old: 

"That ever with a frolic welcome took 
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed 
Free hearts, free foreheads." 

Virtue is virtue only when you choose it in noble reck- 
lessness, not considering the consequences. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Tennyson's Ulysses, from which several quotations have been 
made might well be committed to memory. Spenser's Faerie 
Queene is a great poem, or series of poems, on the heroic qualities 
of virtue. Unfortunately, it is so long that few young people, 
unless they have a very pronounced taste for poetry, will have 
the patience to read it through. The poem is briefly treated 
in a most delightful essay on "The Romance of Ethics," to 
be found in a volume entitled Among Friends, by Samuel 
McChord Crothers. Another essay on "What Makes Life Sig- 
nificant," treats the subject from the same point of view; it is 
by the late William James, and may be found in a little vol- 
ume published under the title Some of Life's Ideals. By all 
means read and read over again Emerson's great essay on Com- 
pensation. In The Shoes of Happiness and Other Poems, by 
Edwin Markham, there is a poem on Freedom with some stirring 
lines in keeping with the substance of this chapter. The volume 
may not be in all school libraries, and I will quote the closing 
quatrain: 

"Man is the conscript of an endless quest, 
A long divine adventure without rest. 
Each hard-earned freedom withers to a bond: 
Freedom forever is beyond — beyond!" 



CHAPTER VI 

COURAGE 

Courage Is the Foundation Virtue Which Supports 
All the Others. — It follows from what was said in the 
last chapter that courage is the primary virtue and, 
therefore, that cowardice is the first and lowest of the 
vices. The first and most important quality of the 
adventurer is that he shall be brave; cowardice dis- 
qualifies him at once. If we are launched in life as a 
great moral adventure, in which perils are to be faced, 
chances are to be taken, sacrifices made, then it must 
be obvious that the first thing we require is courage. 

You see why you have been taught to translate a 
Latin word that looks very much like the English word 
" virtue" by the word " courage." And yet that trans- 
lation is not very exact either. For if you look up the 
derivation of the word "virtus," you will find that it 
comes from the word "vir," which means "a man." 
"Virtus" is, then, "manliness." But that does not 
alter matters very much, for still the essential element 
in manliness is that it is courageous. 

Moral Courage Is the Attribute of Both Sexes 
Equally. — This would seem to mean that courage is 
the virtue of one sex alone. And, indeed, that has 
been the traditional notion. Men were to be brave, 
and women were to be good. This has been a very 

58 



COURAGE 59 

mischievous distinction, for it has led to the notion 
that men might be brave and wicked, and that women 
might be good and cowardly — that goodness therefore 
was effeminate. This notion of barbarous ages has 
been unfortunately accentuated by the influence of 
the mediaeval cloister. In those boisterous times peo- 
ple who were in love with goodness took refuge within 
monastic walls. Perhaps it was the best thing they 
could do at that time. Perhaps we owe it to the clois- 
ter that some fine ideals were preserved for us through 
an age that was filled with disaster. But we also owe 
it to the cloister that the old barbarous distinction 
between courage and purity was fixed more firmly and 
its influence prolonged. For the cloister came to 
mean, or was made to mean, that piety was the refuge 
of the weak and timid, while the world outside, filled 
with strife and riotous with sin, was the sphere of the 
brave. The influence of that mistake is with us yet. 
It is not likely that lusty human animals will relin- 
quish a conception of things so flattering to themselves. 
Now the moral progress of the world is not very 
advanced, but surely we have reached a point where 
it is easy to see the error of this ancient notion. On 
the one hand, the things which are dismissed with con- 
tempt as effeminate are not the qualities of good women 
at all; on the other hand, it ought to be evident that 
the purity of good women has been maintained with 
as fine a heroism as ever appeared on the field of bat- 
tle. Physically men are stronger than women, as phys- 
ically some men are stronger than some other men. 
There is a physical courage that ordinarily goes along 



60 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

with physical strength. But this is the lowest and 
commonest kind of courage. The finer courage, which 
is intellectual and moral, bears no relation whatever 
to physical strength, nor to sex; it is the attribute of 
the free mind. 

Courage Does Not Exhibit Itself in Bravado. — Cour- 
age must be distinguished from the bravado that often 
masquerades under its name. True courage is modest, 
and not disposed to vaunt. The swagger of the bully 
is usually the mask of cowardice. The desperado of 
the West and the gunman of the city rely upon the 
terror of their names to shield them from actual peril. 
Men carry weapons, and nations arm themselves for 
the same reason. Boys put on an air of bravado, 
partly out of sheer vanity perhaps, but partly because 
they are afraid. This is what we call "putting up a 
bluff." 

The Valor of Ignorance Is Not Courage. — Courage 
must also be distinguished from recklessness. There 
is the "valor of ignorance," which is not courage, but 
recklessness — inability to foresee consequences or re- 
fusal to consider consequences. If the danger were 
seen and appreciated there might often be a different 
tale to tell. It is well known that raw troops in their 
first battle are likely to exhibit what looks like a des- 
perate courage; seasoned soldiers, who know what 
the peril is, look on with contempt or pity. 

In one of the battles of the Civil War some regiments 
of fresh recruits made a wild charge against a position 
of the enemy. One of General Grant's staff exclaimed, 
"Look at them! They don't know any better," and 



COURAGE 61 

Grant himself remarked grimly that the officer re- 
sponsible for that would be made to suffer for it. 

A friend of mine went on his first voyage across the 
ocean. I read in the papers of the fearful storm through 
which the vessel had passed, and the injury to ship 
and passengers, and wondered how my friend had be- 
haved. When he came home I asked him about it, 
and whether or not he was frightened. With rather a 
shamefaced manner he replied: "Why, no; I wasn't 
frightened a bit; to tell the truth, I didn't know there 
was a storm till after it was over; I supposed the ocean 
was always like that." The man from the wilds is not 
afraid of live wires, because he doesn't know what 
they will do. 

Courage Is the Moral Achievement of Supreme Self- 
Control. — Courage must also be distinguished from 
fearlessness. There is an insensibility to fear which is 
physical and due to an inactive mind or a torpid imagi- 
nation. I am inclined to doubt that there was ever 
anybody who did not know what fear was. But there 
are people who approximate it. General Horace Por- 
ter tells of two comrades in battle. One was pale and 
trembling, and the other said to him in derision: " What 
is the matter, Jim ? Why, I believe you are scared ! " 
And he replied: "Yes, Bill, I am scared; and if you 
were half as badly scared as I am you would have run 
long ago." Certainly the man who was not ashamed 
to confess his fear, and who, in spite of his fear, held 
to his post of duty, was the braver man of the two. 

The brave man is the one who sees the danger and 
feels it, but faces it nevertheless. Courage is a quality 



62 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

of soul; it is a triumph of the mind. It is a moral 
achievement, the overcoming of self and of the in- 
stinct of self-preservation which is said to be the first 
law of nature. When the steamship Monroe was going 
down, the wireless operator, a mere boy, to whom life 
was exceeding sweet and death a horror to be avoided, 
took off his life-belt and gave it to a woman. The self- 
control which could do that in the face of a known 
danger is none the less sublime, because it is fairly 
common. That such courage is moral rather than 
physical is evident. 

The Fear to Face Reality Leads to Wrong-Doing. — 
The romance of life belongs to righteousness. Cour- 
age is the supreme virtue. That is to say that courage 
is the virtue that gives effect to all the others. One 
may be disposed to truthfulness, but if he have not the 
courage to face the consequences he will not be truth- 
ful. One may be honest at heart, but if he is weak 
enough to fear the consequences of honesty he will 
not be honest. The fear of poverty makes many peo- 
ple slaves all their life long, and some people it makes 
rogues. 

To the experienced eye of maturity it appears 
that most of the sins of the young are due very di- 
rectly to moral cowardice. Why does a boy tell a lie ? 
Very often it is to escape a punishment of which he is 
afraid; sometimes it is in sheer vanity, apparently, 
in order that he may seem to be something that he is 
not. But vanity is cowardice, the fear to face reality. 
The final temptation of boyhood is in the taunt: "Bah, 
you're afraid!" And when the boy yields to that 



COURAGE 63 

temptation and does the thing he knows is wrong, it 
proves that he is something of a coward. 

Ridicule is indeed a terrible weapon to all of us, but 
especially to the young who are more sensitive than 
older people. How often does the fear of ridicule 
drive us to do the thing that we know is wrong! It is 
said that a man would rather seem to be a knave than 
a fool. We need to see that a knave is also a fool, and 
all the more a fool because he is driven to wrong by 
the fear of ridicule. We need also to feel, and we do 
feel in our subconscious soul, that the one who stands 
by his convictions of right in the face of ridicule and 
taunt is the one who is truly brave. 

It rarely requires courage to do wrong, because the 
one who does wrong always intends to avoid detection 
and punishment if he can. Or, if the wrong be done 
in the open, it is in the presence of those who are 
likely to applaud. Ridicule is not much employed 
on the side of right, so that this much-feared weapon 
does not have to be encountered in wrong-doing. It 
always requires courage to do right consistently and 
faithfully. So I repeat, the romance of life belongs to 
righteousness. The heroism which we all admire, the 
adventure which we all covet, these are to be found in 
the path of duty, followed with a fine contempt for 
consequences. 

The Cruelties of the World Are the Tragedy of Cow- 
ardice. — Fear has played a great part in the drama of 
our human life. Mr. Galsworthy has called it the 
"Black Godmother" of all cruelties. In the jungle it 
joins with hunger to create a reign of terror among the 



64 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

beasts. The animals are dangerous only when they 
are desperate, either from hunger or fear. The beasts 
of prey attack only those weaker than themselves. 
Man, who from the point of view of the other animals 
is only the greatest of the beasts of prey, is usually 
humane until he is demoralized by fear. Even the 
lion, the so-called king of beasts, is not dangerous until 
he is either ravenous with hunger or desperate with 
fear. The cruelties of the world are the cruelties of 
cowardice. Animals kill, and men kill only those who 
are weaker than themselves, or else they kill because 
they are afraid of being killed. 

In primitive times men sacrificed animals in their 
religious rites. The purpose was to placate the gods 
and avert their anger. It was cruel and wanton, and 
it was inspired by fear. They went further, and offered 
human sacrifices in the extremity of their fear. They 
even offered their own children as the price of immu- 
nity from divine vengeance. It was the most craven 
and terrible violence of fear that was ever seen. The 
people who did that could not have had the tender 
love for their children that we are familiar with, else 
they would have spared their children and defied the 
gods. But they loved their children more than any- 
thing else except themselves, and the sacrifice was the 
greatest they could make. They made it because they 
were afraid. The Canaanite sending his child through 
the fire to Moloch, and the Indian mother casting her 
babe into the Ganges or under the wheels of Jugger- 
naut, were taught the awful rites of their religion by 
the "Black Godmother" of all cruelties. 

In more enlightened times we find men driven to 



COURAGE 65 

cruelty by this emotion of fear. The witches were 
burned by people who were afraid of them. The In- 
dians were almost exterminated by people who were 
afraid of them. Do you know the origin of the word 
"bedlam"? It is a contraction of the word "Bethle- 
hem/' the name of a famous hospital for the insane, 
which was really not a hospital at all but a madhouse, 
a prison where the wretched victims of mental dis- 
order were confined, with no intelligent effort to re- 
lieve their misery, no humane treatment aiming at a 
possible recovery. They were treated as criminals 
used to be treated, and as they are yet to a consider- 
able extent. We kill our criminals or shut them up 
in prison because we are afraid of them — at least par- 
tially for that reason. The insane in " Bedlam " and 
the criminals in prison are maltreated by their keep- 
ers because they are afraid of them. The boss of a 
gang of foreign workmen explained to me that it was 
necessary to be severe with them in order to keep 
them down. He was brutal because he was afraid. 
Great tyrants have been governed by the like consid- 
erations. When you read that a despotic govern- 
ment has introduced new severities in its treatment 
of its subjects, you may be sure that the govern- 
ment is alarmed by some new intimations of revolu- 
tion. Atrocities are rarely, if ever, committed by 
men who delight in cruelty for its own sake; they 
are committed by cowards who are alarmed for their 
own present or future safety. 

The Aggressor Is Usually a Coward. — There is some 
good ground for the curious contention that war is 
occasioned by fear, the frightened nation striking be- 



66 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

cause it is afraid its rival is going to strike. It seems 
plausible that no enlightened nation would go to war 
if it had assurance that no other nation would attack 
it. In private quarrels it is certain that aggression is 
often inspired by fear. The plea of self-defense is 
sometimes introduced in behalf of the wrong party. 
The one who struck first was the one who was alarmed, 
and defending himself; the one who struck second 
was not so much alarmed as he was angered. 

When a boy begins a fight, one of two things is 
pretty sure to be true; he thinks the one whom he at- 
tacks is weaker than he is, and that is cowardly; or 
he is afraid of being called a coward, and that is cow- 
ardly. A square fight and a fair fight is one of the 
rarest things in the world. How easy it is for a big 
fellow to torment and humiliate a little fellow! 

How easy it is for a crowd to bully a lone individ- 
ual! There is one who is poorer than the rest, or not 
so well dressed as the others, or of a supposedly infe- 
rior social standing. By ignoring him or cutting him 
you can make him suffer most acutely. But, I am 
sorry to add, this form of cowardice is more common 
with girls and women than with boys and men. Boys 
at least are usually democratic. Indeed I have found 
that they are usually brave and manly, with the finest 
sense of fairness to be found in the world. One must 
appeal to a boy's sense of justice, but to a girl's pity. 

The Base Passion of Fear Is Extremely Painful- 
Fear is cruel. The most dreadful atrocities are always 
committed by cowards. The suffering caused by the 
cruelties of fear is very great. But we must think too 
of the suffering experienced by the immediate victims 



COURAGE 67 

of fear. "Fear hath torment." What must have been 
the anguish of mind of those parents who sacrificed 
their own children in order to escape supernatural 
wrath ! Their terror must have reached the verge of 
madness to drive them to such unnatural and revolt- 
ing acts. All fear is accompanied by exquisite suffer- 
ing. So whether we consider the cruelties to which it 
incites men, or the suffering experienced along with 
it, fear is an emotion to be escaped or avoided if possi- 
ble. For our own peace of mind as well as for the sake 
of noble conduct, courage is to be cultivated. 

Courage Gives Peace of Mind. — Science is rapidly- 
emancipating us from fear of the supernatural. Com- 
ets and eclipses do not frighten us; ghosts and witches 
have no longer any terrors for us. Religion has sub- 
stituted the love of God for the fear of the gods. 
There is nothing left to be afraid of except the conse- 
quences of our own acts. This remains, and must 
always remain, for our life is a great adventure, a 
journey into the untra veiled wilderness. The first con- 
sideration is that we shall be noble, that we shall do 
the right thing, regardless of the consequences to our- 
selves. And if we have seen that fear brings distress, 
we may also see that courage brings tranquillity of 
mind, a great serenity of spirit, which is the highest 
happiness. The one who is truly brave is invulnerable 
to the shafts of fate; he marches scathless. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Lowell's great poem The Present Crisis should be memorized 
by every American boy and girl, especially by those who cherish 



68 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

the Puritan tradition. The occasion which called forth its stir- 
ring lines is long past, but the heroic temper of it is always 
timely. Read Emerson's essay on Character. In lighter vein, 
Kipling's delightful story of Wee Willie Winkie will be found in- 
teresting and suggestive. 



CHAPTER VII 

COMPANIONS 

A Favorite Subject with the Wisest People in the 
World. — In this chapter I am going to speak to you 
on an old and much-worn subject. It is a favorite 
subject, and always has been, with the people who are 
at once the wisest and the most foolish people in the 
world. Now there is a period in life when young peo- 
ple fondly suppose that they are themselves the wisest 
people in the world, and when everybody else thinks 
that the most foolish people in the world are these 
same young people. But by the people who are at 
once the wisest and the most foolish people I do not 
mean the young people. 

There is one respect in which many old people and 
most young people are equally unwise, in that they 
both forget that everybody who is old was once 
young. Some older people forget that they were ever 
young, and that is foolish of them. Some young peo- 
ple, when we who are older try to advise them, sup- 
pose that we do not know what we are talking about 
— forget that we were once young, and therefore 
know only too well what we are talking about. Men 
know all about the temptations and the sins of boys. 
They may not say so — they may even pretend not to 
know, for if they admitted the knowledge it might 
suggest some embarrassing questions as to how they 

69 



70 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

found out so much. I very much doubt that any way- 
ward boy ever really deceived his father — certainly he 
did not deceive his father's friends. 

But do not understand that fathers or their friends 
or any men-folks whatsoever are the people whom I 
have described as being at once "the wisest and the 
most foolish people in the world." Men can give good 
advice because they know so much and remember so 
much; but they are not wise, for they are impatient, 
and want to beat in their advice with a big stick; and 
they are not foolish, for they are not deceived. The 
wisest people in the world and the most foolish are the 
mothers. They are the wisest people in the world, be- 
cause instinctively they know the best things and how 
to get them. They are also the most foolish people 
in the world, because they are the most easily de- 
ceived. They see their own children in the transfig- 
uring light of their own affection for them. In the 
face of the evidence which convinces other people 
they will believe in their own children. It is very 
foolish of them, of course, and very beautiful. 

And now, in taking up one of the great themes of 
mother's wisdom and mother's foolishness, if I shall 
happen to say anything that your mothers have al- 
ready said to you a hundred times, I shall be most 
happy in the assurance that I have said something 
very wise indeed. 

The Notion That We Are Different From Other Peo- 
ple Is Largely an Illusion. — All of us, old and young, 
are very much less original and independent than we 
like to think ourselves. We like to think that we can 



COMPANIONS 71 

do things without help, and that we can do things 
that do not occur to other people. Youth, in partic- 
ular, is very self-confident and very daring. That is 
good. Youth is splendid in its daring; it is afraid of 
almost nothing, and it believes in the impossible. I 
would not dampen the ardor of that courage, nor take 
anything from the splendor of that faith, because 
some day some young man or young woman is going 
to think of something that was never thought of be- 
fore, or do something that is now accounted impossi- 
ble. It is a good thing to think that you are different 
from everybody else, because in some rare instances 
it may turn out to be true. 

But there are some ancient limitations that it would 
be as well to recognize at once. For instance, when 
youth thinks that it can handle pitch and not be 
defiled, or take coals in its bosom and not be burned, 
I would like to say at once that this is not new or 
original at all. It has been tried so often and has 
failed so invariably that it is stupid to carry the ex- 
periment any further. 

We Naturally Tend to Fit the World in Which We 
Live. — But how often you have heard a young man say: 
"Now I am different from other fellows; I do so and 
so"; or a young woman say: "I am not like other 
girls; I do so and so! " They all say it, and they all 
believe it. Which goes to show that they are all very 
much alike after all. You say: "I can do this," or 
"I will do that"; "I will be different and original." 
Alas, you can do only about what others around you 
do, and you will do for the most part just what your 



72 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

companions do. You may think you are uttering your 
own thought, but you are quoting your companions; 
you think you are independent and are doing your own 
will, but nearly always you are doing just what your 
companions want you to do. That is not entirely true, 
for your own individuality counts for something, and 
you are not altogether tamed to conformity with the 
world around you. But usually you travel in the thick 
of the crowd, and have very little to say about your 
direction or your speed. Of course you can choose 
your crowd, but I will come to that later. 

Here are some lines written by the late Emperor of 
Japan for a girls' school in his own flowery kingdom: 

"The water placed in goblet, bowl or cup 
Changes its form to its receptacle; 
And so our plastic souls take various shapes 
And characters of good or ill, to fit 
The good or evil in the friends they choose. 
Therefore be ever careful in your choice of friends, 
And let your special love be given to those 
Whose strength of character may prove the whip 
That drives you ever to fair wisdom's goal." 

We are individually more than water in the bowl of 
our environment — we are not quite so thin and fluid 
as that. But we are fluid, or at least plastic, and so 
are shaped to fit the world we choose for ourselves. 

We Speak the Moral Dialect of Our Community. — 
You speak the English language. We call it your 
mother tongue because it is the language of your 
mothers. But it may very well be that some of you 
have mothers who are German, French, or Italian. 



COMPANIONS 73 

The earliest language you learned was, therefore, not 
English. And yet you all habitually speak English, 
and speak it more easily and fluently than any other 
language. The reason is that English is the language 
you commonly hear; it is the language of your asso- 
ciates and companions. You find a foreign tongue 
difficult of acquirement, not because it is a language 
harder to learn than English — it may be a much sim- 
pler language than English — but because you do not 
habitually hear it spoken. 

Moreover, your accent will be that of the commu- 
nity in which you live. You observe that the children 
of foreign parents do not have their parents' accent; 
they speak the language of their companions. You 
get your very vocabulary from the people with whom 
you mingle. You use the words which you are accus- 
tomed to hear. Unconsciously you take up the very 
oddities of speech, the peculiar inflections, the slang 
phrases of your companions. It is very difficult to 
resist this influence, and it forms one of the obstacles 
hardest to overcome. The man is rarely able to pre- 
vent others from knowing the part of the country in 
which he has spent his youth; his speech will betray 
him. 

I dwell upon this subject of language because it is 
an excellent illustration of the power of companion- 
ship. If accents, inflections, words, and phrases are 
taken from our companions, it will be obvious that 
thoughts, aims, tastes, everything that language car- 
ries will be as easily and as inevitably communicated. 
The most delightful rogue in literature says: "It is 



74 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage 
is caught, as men take diseases, one of another; there- 
fore let men take heed of their company." That is 
very sound counsel indeed, and if all men had taken 
it in his day poor Jack Falstaff would have been 
lonely. 

We Go to School to Our Companions, Not to Our 
Teachers. — It is companionship rather than master- 
ship that counts in the shaping of character. We get 
far more from those who are put with us than we do 
from those who are put over us. Wise parents, when 
they select a school or a college for their children, 
are much more concerned about the life of the stu- 
dents, what we call the school or college "spirit," than 
they are about the distinction or the ability of the 
teachers and professors. They know that their chil- 
dren may learn from their teachers, but that they will 
learn from their companions. 

People are built very much as we build houses, with 
windows and doors in the sides, but without skylights 
or traps in the roof. We take in on horizontal lines 
rather than on vertical lines. And, alas for the fool- 
ishness of parents and teachers and all sorts of mas- 
ters, they try to get at us through the roof, from above; 
will not come down to our level to look through our 
windows and walk through our doors! It matters 
much that you young people shall have good masters, 
but it matters more that you shall have good compan- 
ions. You don't always try to please your teachers; 
you don't always, I fear, try to please your parents; 
but you always try to please your companions. You 



COMPANIONS 75 

don't much mind being scolded by older folks; you 
don't much mind being ridiculed by older people — 
you charge it up to their ignorance or their prejudice 
or their age; but you do mind being ridiculed by your 
companions. The only people whom young people 
really fear are other young people. 

And therein lies a part of the power of student gov- 
ernment. A boy may even be a little vain of the re- 
buke or the punishment administered by his superiors; 
but you never knew a boy to be proud of the rebuke 
or the punishment laid upon him by other boys. All 
of us, old and young, have a wholesome respect for 
the judgment of our equals. This may not always 
be admirable; it may sometimes be cowardly. But 
we want to look at things as they are. And the truth 
is, however mean and humiliating, that most people, 
and especially most young people, have a horror of 
being odd. We want the approval of our fellows, and 
we dread their disapproval. So when we are in Rome 
we will do as Rome does. 

The Companionship of Good People Is a Safeguard. 
— But do not suppose that this power of companion- 
ship is only and always a power for evil. If it were, 
then farewell hope for this coming world of ours. 
There are people whose very presence diffuses an at- 
mosphere of wholesomeness about them, with whom 
it is easier to think purely and act nobly. Uncon- 
sciously we try to act up to what is expected of us. 
And there are people who so manifestly expect us to 
do the right thing, because they themselves intend to 
do the right thing, that we do the right thing without 



76 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

thinking or trying. To do otherwise would be to for- 
feit their respect and friendship. They don't need to 
reason with us or to urge us; their presence conveys 
their demand. 

But Evil Leaves Its Mark More Easily Than Good.— 
I wish I could go on to say that the good influence is 
as pervasive and as potent as the bad, but unfortu- 
nately it does not seem to be so. Health is not con- 
tagious; disease is contagious in some of its forms, in 
others it is infectious, and it begins to look as though 
we might some day find out that all disease is either 
contagious or infectious or both. Dirt may be con- 
veyed by contact; cleanness may not. There is the 
peril of evil companionship to the very best people. 

No doubt the best protection against disease is a 
healthy and vigorous constitution, coupled with cour- 
age. The best protection against sin is a healthy, 
normal mind. But no one is so well that he is safe 
among diphtheria patients, and no one is so clean that 
he can handle filth without being defiled. Some day 
you find that you have smeared your right hand with 
soot. Obeying an instinct, you quickly rub your two 
hands together. What is the effect? Has the soot 
come off the blackened hand? Yes, a little; but it 
has come off upon the clean hand, so that now you have 
two soiled hands instead of one. Put a clean young 
man and an unclean young man together, and the 
chances are very strong that you will have two unclean 
young men instead of one. The trouble with clean- 
ness is that it won't come off. Dirt mil come off. 
Keep clear of the people whose conversation leaves a 



COMPANIONS 77 

stain on your mind. The advice of Dogberry is not 
very sound for the police, but it is for the rest of us: 
"They that touch pitch will be defiled; the most 
peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to 
let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your 
company." 

Sin May Be Abandoned, but Its Scars Remain. — 
Evil will come off, but it won't all come off. At least 
it takes a long time to erase the stains left by evil asso- 
ciations. John B. Gough used to say that he would 
give his right arm if he could only forget the things 
he had learned in evil company. Alas, we can never 
forget! We carry our past with us, not merely as a 
memory, but as a haunting influence that will not be 
shaken off. Tennyson makes the wandering Ulysses 
say: 

"I am a part of all that I have met; 
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro , 
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades 
Forever and forever when I move." 

That is true of us all. We see the future by the light 
of the past, and what we shall be is always colored by 
what we have been. 

It would be equally true to say that all that you 
have met is a part of you. Not only what your 
fathers and mothers were, but what your companions 
were also, enters into your heredity. The things you 
have heard have become a part of your life; the people 
with whom you have mingled have become a part of 
your character. You are strong, therefore, or weak, 
according as your companionships have strengthened or 



78 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

impaired the powers of your soul. "Walk with wise 
men and thou shalt be wise; but the companion of 
fools shall smart for it." 

Never Try to Live Alone. — However, there is one 
thing worse even than evil companionship, and that 
is no companionship at all. The lonely mind turns to 
preying upon itself. Without the shock of social 
contacts the imagination becomes morbid and foul. 
Young people are sometimes ruined by the fond care 
that shuts them out from all companionship lest they 
come under evil influences. Get out of yourself and 
away from yourself to mingle with folks. Be a "good 
mixer." Never try to live alone. It is unnatural, un- 
wholesome, and morally dangerous. Live a social life. 

One Great Resource We Have — We Can Choose 
Our Crowd. — But of course you will do that if you are 
free and normal people. We are social creatures. We 
must live with people. It may seem to you therefore 
that I have been saying that you are mere creatures 
of circumstances, whose lives are determined by the 
people around you. No, but you have the power of 
choice. It takes a good many people to run a ship, 
and it takes a good many people to make your life. 
But you are still captain of your own ship; you can 
select your own crew, and direct your own voyage. 
You will go with the crowd — with some crowd; but 
you can select your crowd. It is very important busi- 
ness that — none in all your life will be more important. 
For when you have selected your group of compan- 
ions, you have determined what you will be, what 
you will do, and whither you will go. 



COMPANIONS 79 

I am not offering you the counsel of cowardice either. 
Right well I know that some risks must be taken. 
There is no place of safety in the world. You are not 
to be moral snobs any more than you are to be social 
snobs. If you are strong and clean, you owe something 
to those who need you, and you are not to withhold 
it for the sake of your own peace and righteousness. 
r But you do not owe it to any class of people to come 
down to their level, to mingle with them on their own 
terms. That would only bring you down without 
helping them up. 

You see that your companions have to be those 
who are going your way, because inevitably you will 
go their way. When you cease to go their way, they 
cease to be your companions. Choose for your com- 
panions then those who are going the way that you 
want to go, those who are taking the highway of clean 
living and noble action. Be wise in the selection of 
your friends, and you will never be very unwise in 
anything else. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Addison's Spectator, No. 68; Friendship, by Hugh Black; a 
little book that will be found interesting and useful. Chapter V 
in The Pleasures of Life, by Sir John Lubbock (Lord Avebury). 
This little book is largely a compendium of quotations, and 
there are other chapters in the book which will prove worth 
reading, such as those on "The Duty of Happiness," and "The 
Happiness of Duty." 



CHAPTER VIII 

HABITS 

How Habits Are Formed. — Acts make habits, habits 
make character, and character makes the man. A 
single act, taken by itself may be of comparatively 
little significance. It may never be repeated. If the 
immediate effects are disagreeable it is not likely to 
be repeated. There are exceptions, and strange excep- 
tions to that rule. The immediate effects of the first 
cigar are nearly always extremely unpleasant, and yet 
in many instances they fail to deter their victim from 
further experiments. The heroic determination of 
boys and men to achieve the art of smoking is very 
wonderful indeed. There are other exceptions, but 
they are the exceptions which prove the rule. The 
first effects of the first plunge in the swimming pool 
are unpleasant; but before the boy leaves the water 
these unpleasant sensations are succeeded by sensa- 
tions of a most pleasing sort, which are likely to con- 
quer the aversion to the initial shock. 

It may be said, then, that the first act is likely to 
be repeated if the immediate effects are agreeable, or 
if the accomplishment seems sufficiently desirable to 
be worth the temporary pain. With the first repeti- 
tion of the act the agreeable sensations are likely to 
be heightened, and the disagreeable to become less 
pronounced. There is encouragement therefore to the 

80 



HABITS 81 

second repetition, and so on. The act fixes itself in 
the form of a habit. 

The Channels of Custom in the Nervous System. — 
A simple experiment will illustrate the formation of 
habits. Empty a bucket of water on the soft ground 
of a gentle slope, and observe its action. The tiny 
rivulet picks its way, now drawn by a slight depres- 
sion, now deflected by a hummock or a pebble, follow- 
ing the line of least resistance. Pour a second bucket 
of water on the same spot, and it will follow the same 
course, furrowing out a little deeper the tiny channel. 
A third will plough the channel deeper. So the courses 
of the brooks and rivers have been fixed as the clouds 
emptied their waters on the earth. 

And so our habits are formed, each repetition of an 
act furrowing more deeply the channel of habit in 
the nervous system, until the ditch becomes a ravine, 
and the ravine a valley, through which our action 
must continue to flow. If we could see our own minds 
as in a map, and watch the gradual deepening of these 
channels of habit, we might well be appalled; for it 
would show us how our freedom gives place to neces- 
sity and the thing which we may do becomes the thing 
which we must do. The habit may be a good one or 
a bad one. For the determination of that question 
we have to fall back on our knowledge of good and 
evil or get a report on ultimate consequences. Good 
habits and bad habits are formed in precisely the 
same way. 

Natural Law and Instinct Considered as Habits. — 
We have a saying that "habit is second nature." But 



S2 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

first nature is largely made up of habit. The natural 
laws of which you read should not be thought of as 
decrees or acts of legislation; they are nothing more 
or less than the habits of nature. We seek to explain 
gravitation by saying that bodies are drawn together 
by the attractive force of gravity; but it is an expla- 
nation which explains nothing. Why bodies should 
attract each other we do not know; we only know 
that they always do; it is their habit. We might 
fancy that these natural laws have come into being 
because nature has so long acted in these ways that 
it cannot act in any other. 

The instincts of the animals are habits which have 
been formed through countless generations. Neces- 
sity taught them to do certain things for their pres- 
ervation, and these things proving to be continually 
useful, they were preserved, and finally became in- 
stinctive or natural. And it is at least suggestive as 
to the permanence of habits when once formed, that 
these instinctive acts are continued long after they 
have ceased to be useful. You may observe that 
your pet dog will turn round and round inspecting 
the ground or floor before he will lie down. That is 
a useless habit now, but it was useful when the re- 
mote ancestors of your dog had to be on guard con- 
stantly against their enemies. The instincts of the 
animals are habits which have become a second nature, 
and these habits are preserved by the mysterious 
force of heredity. 

The Habitual Action Is Performed Without Thinking. 
— Our human activities are so complex and variable 



HABITS 83 

that we cannot rely upon instinct for guidance, but 
each generation and each individual must set about 
the task of acquiring habits for his own use. These 
habits acquire almost the authority and permanence 
of instincts, and they operate much the same way, 
that is, automatically. I remember years ago hearing 
a sailor say that so long as you had to think what to 
do in any emergency you did not really know how to 
sail a boat. In the same way it is true that you are 
never a good ball player when you have to think what 
to do when the ball is moving, or when the ball is in 
your hand and a runner is on the bases. The good 
player is so practised to the game that he plays almost 
without thinking — that is, instinctively he knows what 
to do and does it. 

Our lives are largely made up of acts that are spon- 
taneous and almost automatic. The woman knitting 
apparently gives no attention to her work; she can 
talk, she could read if there were a way of holding the 
book for her. The pianist can render familiar music 
and carry on a conversation at the same time. 

Especially is this true of the duties which have 
to be performed regularly every day. You soon 
acquire a regular ritual of procedure in dressing your- 
self and in undressing, and perform these duties in 
precisely the same way and without thinking about 
them. A man shaves himself without giving his 
mind to the somewhat delicate operation — is plan- 
ning his work for the day while he handles the 
brush and razor. We cannot say that any of these 
operations are instinctive precisely, and yet they ap- 



84 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

proach that character, for they are done without 
thinking. But we have to learn them all, and it is the 
practice of many repetitions that has created a habit. 

Habits Are Economical of Time. — What has been 
said will suggest something of the value and also some- 
thing of the peril of habits. They are great time savers. 
They enable us to do quickly what would otherwise 
rob us of much valuable time. The first time you do a 
thing you are very slow about it; but when you have 
done it fifty or five hundred times you will do it in a 
fraction of the time required at the beginning. The 
novice at the typewriter tediously picks out the let- 
ters; the expert fingers the keys with marvellous rapid- 
ity. If you had to dress yourself each morning with- 
out any of the facility acquired by practice, you would 
always be late to breakfast, and much of each day 
would be lost. Practice gives us speed, because the 
nerves and the muscles act much more quickly in ways 
in which they have been accustomed to act. 

The mind also responds to the discipline of prac- 
tice. After a vacation your lessons require a good 
deal of time, but after a week or two of faithful study 
the supple mind accommodates itself to familiar 
grooves, and you get your lessons in half the time. 
One of the most important of your acquisitions in 
school is the habit of study. 

And in that connection I must speak of the impor- 
tance of regular habits, whether of work or of study. 
Regularity, or routine, also is a great time saver. Very 
often the reason one student has more time than an- 
other for reading and play is that he has formed regular 



HABITS S5 

habits of study. The men of truest leisure are not the 
ones with nothing to do, but the ones who save their 
time by regular and rapid work. The people who 
have no time for the enjoyments of life are the ones 
who dawdle over their work, or work fitfully and irregu- 
larly. Their work is never done. 

The Mechanical Action of Habit Releases the Mind 
for Other Occupations. — But in another respect habits 
are time savers, as already suggested, because they en- 
able us to go through with a great deal of the routine 
of life without thinking about it. We can do two 
things at once, because one of them is done auto- 
matically, leaving the mind free to engage in the 
other. Robert Burns composed poems while follow- 
ing the plough, and Spinoza built his philosophy while 
grinding lenses. Most of you, I hope, have certain 
duties to perform at home, and while performing them 
you can be planning a theme for to-morrow or a party 
for Friday evening. This may seem a trifling matter, 
but as you go on in life you will find it anything but 
trifling. A great deal of our life must be spent upon 
relatively unimportant things. If we can acquire a 
habit of doing them mechanically while our minds are 
occupied with the more important things, we shall in- 
crease by so much the time at our disposal. 

Habits Provide Us with a Staff of Assistants in Our 
Work. — Habits are also savers of effort, or at least of 
conscious effort. When you do a thing for the first 
time there are two operations which must be performed 
with considerable difficulty: first you must think out 
what to do, and then you must force your stiff and un- 



86 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

accustomed muscles to carry out your purpose. When 
we see good work or good play we are apt to say: "It 
looks easy." The graceful skater seems to be putting 
forth no effort of either mind or body, and as matter 
of fact he is not. But do you remember the first time 
you ever put on skates? And do you remember the 
first time you took them off? How terribly tired you 
were! You had been working hard, because you had 
been doing unaccustomed things — and probably doing 
several things you had not intended to do, which 
added not a little to the soreness of mind and body. 

Everything looks easy till you have tried it, and 
everything. becomes easy after you have tried it often 
enough. The explanation is very simple. The mind 
becomes accustomed to an order of procedure, so that 
it moves rapidly through the successive steps in the 
process without being distinctly conscious of each 
separate one. The muscles also become used to cer- 
tain contractions and relaxations, so that they seem 
to perform their duties unbidden. Action becomes 
so nearly automatic that we are aware of little or no 
effort, and we say we can do that thing without try- 
ing, which is almost literally true. 

The capable business man in his office gets through 
with a vast amount of business because he has his 
staff of assistants thoroughly organized, and he dele- 
gates the bulk of the routine work to these assistants, 
reserving for himself only the more important prob- 
lems. You also are to have your well-organized staff 
of assistants in the form of habits, which will perform 
for you all the regular tasks with but slight direction, 



HABITS 87 

leaving your conscious mind and your liberated body 
free for the weightier business of life. 

Habit Is Either a Power or a Bondage. — Habit not 
only enables you to do a thing more quickly and with 
a minimum of effort, but it enables you to do it better. 
"Practice makes perfect." The work of the novice is 
not only slow and tiresome, but it is not well done; he 
always bungles things. We always look for the best 
product to the trained mind and the trained hand. 

And so you see that habit is power. It is not always 
power, however; sometimes it is bondage. For the 
difference we shall have to go back to the distinction 
between useful habits and useless habits. The habit 
itself simply gives facility in doing things. We talk 
vaguely about one's getting into ruts. We all get into 
ruts, accustom ourselves to move in grooves that are 
more or less fixed. The only question is as to the 
kind of ruts we shall get into, and whither they will 
take us, if followed to the end, as they are likely to be. 

The word "habit" comes from the Latin "habere," 
which means "to have." A habit is something that 
you have, and which it is very difficult to lose or have 
taken away. It is one of the most secure possessions 
in the world. Sometimes it may appear the other way 
round, that the habit has you, has you firmly in its grip, 
and you can hardly escape. If the habit is a desirable 
one, you have it, and it is power. If the habit is an 
undesirable one, it has you, and it becomes a dreadful 
bondage. 

Habit Changes Voluntary Action Into Necessity. — 
Habit subdues the imagination, and so makes us its 



88 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

tool. There are things which we do, and think we 
must do, to which we are compelled simply by the 
power of habit over the mind. By far the greater 
number of those who are the victims of the drink habit 
are the victims of the habit and not of an appetite. 
They do not yield to a physical craving for stimulant 
so much as they yield to a morbid hallucination. I 
have seen habitual drunkards suddenly break away 
and become total abstainers without any physical dis- 
comfort whatever. The only possible explanation is 
that the habit was mental. They drank, not because 
an appetite craved satisfaction, but because they 
thought they wanted the stimulant. 

There is a sick habit, and a very bad one it is to 
contract. The victims are not sick, but only think 
they are sick. Cunning physicians have long been 
accustomed to give their hypochondriac patients such 
harmless nostrums as chloride of sodium dissolved in 
aqua pura, or pills compounded of bread and some- 
thing to give a bad taste. And marvellous have been 
the cures produced by these innocent medicines! 
Many of the things which we call necessities are only 
the luxuries to which we have become so accustomed 
that we think we must have them. When they are 
taken away we discover that we have been the vic- 
tims of mental habits. 

But habit can go beyond the production of halluci- 
nations. It can plant demands in the body as well as 
in the mind. As Hamlet says: 

"For use almost can change the stamp of nature." 



HABITS 89 

Custom finally turns itself into necessity. The stimu- 
lant, the narcotic, the deadly drug, taken continuously 
and regularly, effect changes in the physical system, 
and so create a demand for themselves. Alcoholism 
is often a real disease, but nevertheless a disease that 
has been produced artificially by the habit of drinking. 
There are other diseases of the body that are real and 
horrible which are produced by the continued cultiva- 
tion of evil habits. 

Evil Habit Corrupts Morals at Their Source. — Habit 
also affects the seat of moral judgment. Custom fin- 
ally overcomes conscience. It is hard to convince a 
man that the thing he has always done is wrong. He 
is like the man whom Crabbe describes: 

"Habit with him was all the test of truth. 
'It must be right; I've done it from my youth/ " 

If you will look up the word "ethics" in the dictionary 
you will find that it is derived from a Greek word 
which means "custom." And if you will look up the 
word " moral " you will find that it comes from a Latin 
word which also means "custom" or "habit." Are 
not these significant facts? They remind us that the 
moral judgments are always profoundly influenced 
by accepted conventions, and that the current morals 
of the society in which we live stand in large measure 
for cultivated habits. 

But there is a more serious aspect of the matter. 
Evil habits blur the moral perception and confuse the 
distinction between good and evil; they stifle and 
almost silence the stern voice of conscience. The most 



90 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

pitiable of all the outcasts of the world are the people 
who have ceased to be immoral because they have be- 
come unmoral. Good and evil, right and wrong are 
for them only names for that which is advantageous 
to them or injurious to their interests. They do wrong 
without shame because they are not conscious of any 
degradation. 

Habits Make the Man, but Man First Makes the 
Habits. — "What creatures of habit we are! " is a fre- 
quent exclamation. How constantly and almost in- 
errantly do we all travel in grooves! But remember 
that this is no cruel fate imposed upon us from without. 
If we are in bondage we have forged our own fetters. 
Or, if we have achieved useful habits which clothe us 
with power, again it is our own doing. 

"Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. 
Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids; 
Her monuments shall stand when Egypts fall." 

Of course we begin life without any habits at all. 
It is true that the authority which controls us in our 
earliest years begins the work of framing our life habits 
for us. But we begin to enjoy and use our freedom 
before any habits are irrevocably fixed. In the main 
we make our own habits, unconsciously, without de- 
liberation, and usually with no clear perception of 
their power or their destination. The more important 
part of the work is accomplished before we reach ma- 
turity, in the plastic years of youth. That is the only 
ground of complaint, that so much of habit must be 
formed in the unthinking period, and that when we 
come to realize what we have been doing it often seems 



HABITS 91 

too late to correct the terrible mistakes. All the point 
of the counsel and advice so freely offered to the 
young is to get them to see what they are doing while 
it is still comparatively easy to make desirable changes 
in their conduct of life. 

The Single Action Confirms or Else Weakens the 
Power of Habit. — However, the domination of habit 
never becomes absolute and complete. In spite of the 
nets it weaves about us, we remain the masters of our 
own fate. Evil habit makes it harder to do right, and 
good habit makes it easier. We have only to remember 
how habits are formed to see how they are to be main- 
tained or how they are to be broken. Every repeti- 
tion of an act confirms and strengthens the habit; 
every refusal or failure to repeat the act weakens and 
tends to destroy the habit. If the habit be a useful one, 
failure to follow it even once takes away facility and 
robs of strength. If the habit be a useless and hurtful 
one, refusal to follow it once makes it easier to refuse 
a second time. Things are in your own hands, espe- 
cially in your own hands, who are young. For you are 
building the roads in which manhood and womanhood 
shall march; you are furrowing out the channels in 
which the river of your life shall flow. You, of all peo- 
ple, can choose and make your own habits. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

I shall suggest but one reading on this topic, Habit, by Wil- 
liam James. This essay is published separately in a little vol- 
ume which can be read through in half an hour. It should cer- 
tainly be read, and with care. 



CHAPTER IX 

NEGLECT AND DEGENERATION 

The Analogy of Nature Is Useful in the Sphere of 
Morals. — The world as we find it is more or less a 
civilized world. We know that this civilization did 
not always exist, but that it is the product of centu- 
ries of progress. There was a time when men ran wild, 
without law, without enlightenment, and without the 
comforts of life. And when men ran wild, the world 
about them also ran wild; it was a wilderness. There 
were no towns, but there was also no country, as we 
commonly understand the term. There were no cul- 
tivated fields, and there were no highly developed 
plants or animals. Men were mastered by their en- 
vironment, the creatures of nature and the playthings 
of its terrible moods. The progress that has produced 
civilization has consisted partly in the development 
of the human race, but partly in the subjugation of 
nature to human service. The two move together. 
You cannot have civilization in the wilderness, and 
you cannot have a cultivated and fruitful world with- 
out civilization. So completely are we a part of the 
world in which we live that we cannot advance with- 
out taking the world along with us. 

There is a certain unity in the world that justifies as 
in looking to nature for instruction, assured that the 
same principles which govern the affairs of plants and 

92 



NEGLECT AND DEGENERATION 93 

animals govern also the affairs of men. We find ap- 
plication of "natural law in the spiritual world/' as 
Henry Drummond did in his great book. 

Nature Requires Human Aid to Produce Her Best. 
— Now the first fact that confronts us in the world of 
nature is this: That Nature of herself and unaided 
gives us nothing of her best; that it is only by human 
co-operation that she is able to approach the higher 
levels of perfection. 

In one of his interesting books the late Lord Avebury 
says that the hand of man touches nature only to mar, 
or words to that effect. That was a singular thing for 
such a man as Lord Avebury to say. In illustration 
of his statement he takes us away from the city to the 
country, not to the unbroken tangle of an African 
forest, but to an English countryside, with its trim 
hedgerows, its wooded parks, its spacious lawns, and 
its highly cultivated fields and gardens. He takes us, 
that is, to where the hand of man has touched, not to 
mar, but to improve in beauty and usefulness. The 
familiar saying that "God made the country while 
man made the town " is not strictly true. The country 
as we know it is also the work of man. 

It is a singular evidence that the world was made 
for man, that Nature's laboring forces must wait for 
the intelligent aid of men in order to produce her best. 
The difference between the wild rose and the culti- 
vated, between the wild cherry and the Black Eagle, 
between the wild nectarine of Arabia and the Elberta 
peach, between the wild grass and the wheat that 
gives bread to the world, is precisely the difference be- 



94 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

tween what Nature will do when left to herself, and 
what she can be made to do by intelligent cultivation. 
The La France rose and the Baldwin apple and the 
Ponderosa tomato and the Fife wheat represent ages 
of human cultivation. 

The same thing is true of the domestic animals, 
where man has taken of Nature's best, and has im- 
proved it almost beyond recognition. For we have 
not been content merely to domesticate these animals 
and set them to doing our work for us; we have tried 
to develop them, to make them more beautiful and 
capable of larger usefulness. The Morgan horse, the 
Jersey cow, the Southdown sheep, the Collie dog, each 
one gives us the result of human breeding and care 
for centuries and millenniums. This world of beauty 
and utility which we call nature is the product of a 
long and laborious cultivation. 

The Savage Is in Every Way Inferior to the Civilized 
Man. — The same things are true of the human species 
and of human society, only that here the intelligent 
co-operation of man has been directed, not upon other 
creatures, but upon himself. The human body has 
been developed and made more beautiful and stronger. 
You can easily see this by comparing the savage with 
the civilized man. In the matter of beauty the con- 
trast is striking. The ugliness of the savage man or 
woman is due largely to the unrestrained riot of base 
passions which disfigure the countenance. We do not 
have to go to savage communities to see that, but 
among savage peoples we always see it. In the mat- 
ter of strength the savage is also inferior. When the 



NEGLECT AND DEGENERATION 95 

two races are brought into collision it is always the 
civilized man who prevails over the savage. But this 
physical development is subordinate to the intellectual 
or spiritual development. Ages of intelligent effort 
have built up a larger brain, a stronger will, a more 
beautiful soul. 

A " State of Nature " Is in No Way Desirable.— 
We wonder now at the talk there was in the eigh- 
teenth century about the superiority of a "state of 
nature" — talk which captivated even so sensible a 
man as Sam Johnson, and so spiritual a man as Cow- 
per, leading him to express that familiar longing: 

"O for a lodge in some vast wilderness ! " 

If the philosophers of the eighteenth century wanted 
to return to a "state of nature" they had only to go 
to Africa or Australia or South America. It is very 
certain that they would have found themselves un- 
comfortable, and that they would have proceeded to 
do one of two things; return with all speed to civiliza- 
tion, or set about changing a "state of nature" to one 
of cultivation which would have supplied their wants. 
The Best Things Are Largely the Products of Human 
Cultivation. — We must not misunderstand evolution 
in its bearing on our problem, nor miss its limitations. 
Evolution gave us the brier, but cultivation gave us 
the rose. Evolution gave us the wolf, but cultivation 
gave us the dog. Evolution gave us a wild, uncouth, 
shaggy little animal, which human care has developed 
into the horse, much more beautiful, many times 
stronger, and with a gentle nature that makes him 



96 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

our friend as well as our servant. Evolution gave us 
the human being, standing upright and with the ma- 
terial of greatness in him; but it has required a long 
and laborious self-cultivation to bring him up from the 
squalor and helplessness of savagery to the present 
opulence of civilization and the mastery of the world. 
Evolution did not give us laws, morals, education, 
although it may be granted that development by in- 
telligent effort has followed the main outlines of evo- 
lutionary law. 

Nature unaided gives us nothing of her best. The cul- 
tivated world and the civilized man are largely hu- 
man products. Any notion of history which implies 
that the world began in perfection, or that the human 
race started on this planet in an ideal state which has 
been lost, is to-day absurd. The Garden of Eden was 
scarcely more than a jungle or a patch of weeds, which 
man was to cultivate into beauty and order and use- 
fulness. The natural man is only a bundle of divine 
possibilities. The labor of long and diligent ages has 
been required to effect the mastery of nature and to 
give us the civilized man of to-day, far enough yet 
from perfection, but vastly removed from his original 
condition of helpless and squalid savagery. 

The Best Things Are Held by a Precarious Tenure. 
— And now the second fact which confronts us is this 
— that all this finer product in plant and animal and 
man is held by a precarious tenure of continued and 
tireless effort. That is a truth that may well appall us 
— that all that has been gained in the long ages of 
human progress may slip away from us, and will if the 



NEGLECT AND DEGENERATION 97 

cultivation stops. All our human achievement is like 
that of the swimmer who is fighting his way against a 
mighty current. To stop, to rest, to be careless, is to 
lose all that has been gained. Even to hold our own, 
we must keep going on. We work in a fluid medium. 
There is nothing that can be nailed down. There is 
nothing of which we have made ourselves sure. 

Leave your finest flowers to propagate themselves, 
and they will start back toward the weeds out of 
which they have been built up. Turn your high-bred 
animals loose to run wild in nature's fashion, and they 
will soon lose their fine qualities; only a few genera- 
tions, and they will be back at the starting point. 
Leave your fine lawn or garden alone — you need not 
make it the receptacle for tin cans and ashes, just 
leave it alone — and it will speedily go back to the wil- 
derness. A wise man wrote long ago: "I went by the 
field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man 
void of understanding; and, lo, it was all grown over 
with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, 
and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I 
saw and considered it well; I looked upon it and re- 
ceived instruction." 

Did you ever see an abandoned farm? If you did 
you looked upon one of the solemn sermons of life, 
warning you that wherever there is neglect there will 
be degeneration. In the dense forests of Yucatan 
there are the ruins of a great civilization. Neglect 
some time left open the door, and ever- watchful Nature 
came back to reclaim her supremacy. In the East 
there are districts which were once all a garden, the 



98 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

plains highly cultivated, and even the steep hillsides 
terraced and planted like the hillsides in Bavaria and 
along the Rhine to-day. They supported a teeming 
population, were the home of a great civilization, and 
the country must have been fair to look upon. To- 
day these districts are ghastly in their barrenness, and 
a scanty population ekes a scanty living from the soil. 
The devastation of war, the insecurity of life and 
property, reckless deforestation to some extent — these 
and other causes have arrested cultivation. We see 
the result. 

Neglect Is Disastrous to Men and Morals. — But 
the land has not gone back farther or faster than its 
people. The people of those Eastern lands, once the 
centre of the world's highest civilization, have also 
degenerated and become barbarous. It has probably 
taken longer to produce the good man than it has to 
produce the Jack rose, and so it will probably take 
longer for him to get back to savagery than it will take 
the rose to get back to the brier; but the tendency 
and the end are no less certain. To pair with the aban- 
doned farm or the deserted homestead, there may be 
found, in any of the older communities, families that 
were once accounted among the best and most influen- 
tial, which have in a few generations come down to 
the lowest level. 

The abandoned farm and the degenerate family alike 
illustrate the fearful penalty of neglect. Indeed you 
may find many a spot in our land where the whole com- 
munity has gone far back toward a "state of nature." 
The Mountain Whites of the South are a vast com- 



NEGLECT AND DEGENERATION 99 

munity gone intellectually and morally to briers and 
nettles. They come of the best blood that immigrated 
to America, and a few generations of neglect has re- 
sulted in an appalling desolation of mind and manners. 

Moreover, it is not merely knowledge that is lost, 
not only wealth and the comforts of life, but the pow- 
ers of perception have been broken down. The fishes 
in Mammoth Cave have the semblance, the pictures of 
eyes, showing that they originally belonged to the 
world of light where eyes were needed and used. But 
behind the picture now is no living optic nerve, only 
a tiny mass of ruins. Living long in darkness has de- 
stroyed the power of sight. "Eyes have they, but 
they see not." You know there are people like that, 
who have gone back to spiritual blindness. An appeal 
to the finer feelings, to the nobler sentiments, to the 
moral consciousness does not reach them. This is the 
most terrible penalty of neglect. 

There Is Always a Tendency to Revert to Original 
Conditions. — It is easy to forecast in general terms 
who will be the people of consequence and power three 
or four generations hence. They will not necessarily 
be the descendants of the people who to-day are rich, 
intelligent, and comfortable; they will be the descend- 
ants of the people who are to-day using their opportuni- 
ties. And the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, 
the drudges of three generations hence, will be, not 
necessarily the grandchildren of those who are to-day 
poor and illiterate, but the grandchildren of the people 
who are to-day careless and wasteful of the precious 
products of civilized and enlightened progress. 



100 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

By tireless industry, regular habits, and frugal liv- 
ing, a man makes a place of comfort for himself and 
his family. He is not willing that his son shall work 
as he worked or suffer hardship as he did, and the son 
is very likely to share his father's views on the sub- 
ject; it is not necessary for him to practise the stern 
virtues of his father, and he commands the means and 
the leisure for indulgences which his father never knew. 
He does not perceive, and strange to say the father 
rarely perceives, that by his relaxation he is losing all 
his father gained. The current against which his 
father fought his way continues with unabated force. 
By the third or fourth generation, a weak man, with 
flabby muscles and bewildered brain is floating down- 
ward with the stream. 

It is the frequent history of families, of nations, of 
races. Wealth tends to destroy the power that created 
it, and civilization tends to undo itself. It all means 
only that gravitation is forever against us, that the 
natural flow is down the stream, that we hold our 
gains by a precarious tenure and always upon the 
condition of tireless effort. 

When the Individual Relaxes His Effort He Begins 
to Go Backward. — I have dwelt upon this subject in 
its larger aspects because that is the easiest way to 
see the facts; it gives us our lesson in large print. But 
it will be obvious that principles which operate so cer- 
tainly in generations of plant and animal and man 
have also their application in the life of the individual. 
You will readily understand that the best you get in 
character or knowledge is obtained at great cost, and 



NEGLECT AND DEGENERATION 101 

we need not dwell upon that. As the old copy-book 
motto has it: "There is no excellence without great 
labor." But do you know how easily all you have 
gained may be lost? 

"It is the most difficult of tasks to keep 
Heights which the soul is competent to gain." 

The good ball player must keep in practice, not merely 
for improvement, but just to keep as good as he is. 
The pianist must keep everlastingly at the piano or 
lose her skill and power. If you have learned German 
you must continue to use German with tongue and 
ear and eye, or it will become again a strange and un- 
known language to you. 

In my school days, which were spent in a college 
town, it was a constant source of wonder to us that so 
many of the good students disappeared in after-life, 
while many poor students came to distinction. We 
were disposed to draw the absurd and mischievous 
conclusion that good studentship was a poor invest- 
ment, and that the prospects of usefulness and success 
were better for the men who neglected their college 
work. The true explanation is very different from 
that. The good students who made a failure in life 
were the men who took their diplomas with a great 
contentment, feeling that they had achieved their edu- 
cation; they abandoned their studies at commence- 
ment, and so began to lose all the knowledge and the 
power they had gained. The poor students who made 
a success were men who felt their loss at the end of the 
college course, and straightway set to work to atone 
for their past neglect. 



102 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

Ceaseless Effort Is Required to Hold Our Gains. — 
We keep only what we continue to use. That is true 
of all acquired skill, and all skill is acquired skill. It 
is true of skill in games, and it is true of skill in the 
Great Game of life. It is true of knowledge, and it is 
true of virtue. Character is not like a rock fixed in 
the midst of a river; it is like a boat afloat, which 
maintains its place only by ceaseless labor, breasting 
the current. "Time," says Bacon, "changeth all 
things for the worse." Our houses, no matter how 
well they are built or at what cost, must be kept in 
repair or they will fall into ruin. Our characters, no 
matter how they are built up out of right motives and 
lofty principles, will go into decay through neglect. 
Virtue lives upon the practice of virtue. Social right- 
eousness perishes without constant social service. In 
every relation of life it is true that "eternal vigilance 
is the price of safety." 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Lowell's poem, Extreme Unction. Chapter on "Degenera- 
tion," in Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World. 



CHAPTER X 

WORK 

Work Is Not a Curse but a Blessing. — When I was 
a boy my father once took me with him to a neigh- 
boring town, leaving me at the house of a relative 
while he attended to his business. It so happened 
that a house was being moved through the street. I 
watched the novel operation for some time, but finally 
yielded to a strong impulse that struggled against a 
natural timidity, and went to the help of the men at 
the windlass. Upon his return my father found me 
engaged in that laborious but enticing occupation, 
and called me away. On the journey home he rebuked 
me for helping men to do work for which they were 
being paid while I was not. My father's rebukes were 
always so kindly that they rarely hurt very much; but 
this one hurt, and so I have remembered it. He made 
me feel that I had done something foolish, one of the 
sharpest punishments inflicted on boy or man. 

But the shame I experienced has long since faded 
away, and I look back on my conduct now as very 
natural and proper. I had young muscles which were 
clamoring for employment. I saw men working hard, 
and the human instinct was to help them. There was 
a wholesome pleasure in feeling the lever yield to my 
push, in seeing the rope coil on the drum of the wind- 

103 



104 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

lass, and the house slowly creeping down toward me. I 
was enjoying myself; I was making myself useful; what 
matter that I didn't have to do the work or that I was 
not paid for it ? My father, good man ! was under one 
of the delusions which make the world unhappy and 
wicked, namely, that work is a hardship, and that the 
only reasons which justify it are that one has to work 
and is paid for working. It is a very ancient delusion 
and so widely prevalent as to be almost universal; 
but it is a delusion nevertheless. 

There Is Such a Thing as " the Joy of Work."— The 
joy of work is a phrase that excites a good deal of ridi- 
cule. Mention it to a company of laboring men, and 
very likely they will laugh you to scorn. If they rea- 
son with you about it at all they will say that you 
don't know anything about real work, that to you it 
means brain work, which they regard as recreation, 
not labor. Mention it to a company of business men, 
and you will be greeted with similar hilarity. The 
busy man will tell you that he is not working either 
for pleasure or for the benefit of his health, but to 
make a living or because he wants more money. 

But is there not a deep and genuine satisfaction in 
making a living or in adding to one's fortune ? And 
wouldn't a man rather make a living or build a fortune 
by hard work than get it in any other way under the 
sun? The laboring man, too, is mistaken. Usually 
the most independent and self-respecting of men, he 
scorns the "bread of idleness," covets no man's 
charity, and the most insistent of his demands is that 
he shall have the proud privilege of earning his way. 



WORK 105 

The Pleasure of Work Is Not All in Its Rewards — 
However, it may be said that there is pleasure in the 
rewards of work, and not in the work itself. And it 
must be granted that a great deal of the human work 
that has to be done is in itself disagreeable and unat- 
tractive. Yet there is really such a thing as "the joy 
of work," and it is not at all uncommon. At one end 
of life you may see it in the eagerness of the young 
man to get to work. At the other end of life you may 
see it in the unhappiness of the man who has made the 
mistake of giving up work too soon. Men who have 
led busy and useful lives, and who retire before they 
have passed out of the great working years, wander 
about discontented and wretched. In many instances 
they fail physically or mentally or both, and some- 
times die of no apparent disease, but simply because 
they have nothing left to live for. What does it mean, 
if not that work itself affords pleasure? Some men 
are wise enough to retire into some new form of activ- 
ity, and so preserve their happiness, or even increase 
it as new and broader interests are awakened. But 
the truth is that there is a craving for employment of 
our powers as deep as life itself, and that the satisfac- 
tions which make up happiness are to be sought and 
found, in large part at least, in laborious and useful 
days. 

Nor are these satisfactions always associated with 
the prospective rewards of labor. Men work who do 
not need to work for the sake of the pay, and they con- 
tinue to work when they have accumulated more than 
they can ever use. A famous old man who had amassed 



106 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

a great fortune denied that he cared for more money, 
he had enough. "Then why," he was asked, "do you 
continue to work and make more money?" He an- 
swered frankly and no doubt truthfully: "Because I 
like the game." The old man was doing just what I 
did as a boy when I helped to move the house. And 
most of the men who go grumbling to their work 
would manifest some consternation if it were intimated 
that for any reason they were likely to lose their occu- 
pation. 

Of course, as I have already said, there are some 
forms of work that are not attractive, and no form of 
work is equally attractive to all people. So it is highly 
important that one shall choose for himself an occupa- 
tion in which he will be happy. But away with the 
notion that all work is drudgery, and that it is only a 
hard necessity or a consuming avarice that can drive 
men to their tasks! Work is the natural occupation 
of life, a blessing, and not a curse. 

Idleness Is Immoral Because It Leads to Wrong- 
Doing. — The moral aspect of work appears first in a 
negative form which is expressed in the proverb: 
"Satan will always find something for idle hands to 
do." Complete idleness is impossible to anybody but 
a paralytic. The people who are not doing something 
useful will be sure to do something harmful; they 
must be doing something. Vice flourishes on the un- 
employed and on holidays. It is perhaps a good thing 
to have a leisure class, so-called, because they can do 
some of the many useful things for which there is no 
compensation forthcoming. But an idle class is al- 



WORK 107 

ways a menace and usually a curse to a city or coun- 
try. It is bound to get into mischief. Wherever you 
find such a class you will find that it reeks with scandal. 

The Only Way in Which One Can Pay His Way Is by 
Useful Work. — But the moral purpose of work goes 
beyond the mere task of keeping people out of tempta- 
tion and sin. It is a simple question of common hon- 
esty. We all have to be consumers, and we all ought 
to be producers. We receive so much from the world, 
and the only possible way to pay for it is by our toil. 
Money is only a certificate of work performed, some- 
body's work, and if it is not our work, it does not 
square us with the world. All the things we enjoy 
have been produced by somebody's work, and if we 
do not turn an equivalent of value into the common 
fund we are in default to mankind; we are living on 
stolen goods; we are cheating at the game. 

Work Alone Procures the Satisfaction of Self-Re- 
spect. — We have this sense of things, for one of the 
greatest motives with the young man for getting into 
the work of the world, and with the older man for 
keeping in it, is the grand desire to be independent. 
We all want to shift for ourselves as soon as we can, 
and as long as we can. Our pride resents the thought 
of our being cared for by others. Self-respect, that 
reverence for one's own soul which ever seeks to guard 
it against any and every profanation, is the first sup- 
port of virtue. People who do not respect themselves 
are the easy victims of all forms of temptation. Selfish 
people who lie and cheat and steal may seem to be only 
inconsiderate of the rights of others; but in the first 



108 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

instance they have no proper consideration for them- 
selves. They are mean-spirited, without dignity of 
character — that is, without self-respect. 

We may be misled by the preachments about un- 
selfishness, as though it involved self-neglect. "Love 
thyself last," is the counsel of the fallen Wolsey. 
That is an impossible thing. The great Teacher did 
not say that; he said: "Love thy neighbor as thy- 
self." And that plainly implies a precedent love of 
self. Everything starts from oneself; that is the 
original world from which we set out on all journeys, 
all adventures. Polonius's crowning advice to young 
Laertes is sound to the very core: 

"This above all: to thine own self be true, 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

The desire for independence which sends us to our work 
in the world is primarily homage paid to oneself in 
the determination to be self-sufficient, to pay one's 
own way. 

Then follows the inevitable consideration of others. 
The desire to be fair bids us not to impose ourselves 
as a burden upon others. It is no matter that it be 
done legally, the shame remains. However custom 
may approve of one's being supported in idleness by 
the work of others, the thing is unfair and dishonest. 
It is taking somebody at a disadvantage. It is eva- 
sion of the laws of the universe. It violates the rules 
of the game. It is cheating at play. 

So the desire to be independent is the subtle asser- 



WORK 109 

tion of moral principle whose aim is at once to preserve 
the integrity of one's own soul and to secure the just 
rights and immunities of other people. Work is fun- 
damental morality. 

The Passion for Achievement Is a Moral Impulse. — 
But coupled close with the desire to be independent 
is the desire for achievement. We are not contented 
unless there is something doing. We are born into an 
aggressive movement which takes us with it from the 
start. We must be overcoming something or we are 
not happy. The fighting proclivities of the race are 
but a perversion of this instinct of conquest. I have 
spoken of this combativeness in another chapter, and 
just now I only want to connect it with the morality 
of work. Of course, the effect of hard work is to 
toughen the sinews and so prepare for success in the 
moral battle. But there is more to it than that. 

What has morals to do with cutting a canal through 
the isthmus of Panama or the invention of wireless 
telegraphy? Just this, that every such achievement 
is subduing the world and the elements to human uses. 
It is a direct contribution to that betterment and hap- 
piness of mankind in which the moral nature finds its 
most joyous expression. 

The desire for independence differs from the desire 
for achievement as making a living differs from 
making a fortune. In the one instance honesty bids 
us put into the common fund as much as we take out 
of it; in the other instance a generous ambition bids 
us put into the common fund more than we take out 
of it. In my boyish escapade I wanted to see the 



110 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

house moving — wanted to see it moving at the bidding 
of my straining muscles. We are always like that. 
We want to see things moving — we want to see the 
world moving, and moving forward, not backward. 
We hate to see things standing still — hate it almost 
as much as we hate to see things moving backward. 
The forward movement means a larger life and a 
better world. So there is a profound moral satisfaction 
in doing things. We feel, not only that we are dis- 
charging a debt to the world, but that we are become 
benefactors. 

Work Gives a Reason for Our Existence in Society. 
— And that brings us to another important considera- 
tion. Useful work is a service rendered to others. 
There is so much work to be done in the world. Some- 
body must do it. We see multitudes of people already 
engaged in it. Then we hear the human call to share 
in the toil, and have the human impulse to go to the 
help of the workers. There is the noble element of 
brotherliness in it; it comes out of the friendly in- 
stincts of the warm human heart. You can remember 
that when a little child, as a boy you wanted to help 
father, as a girl you wanted to help mother. And how 
proud you were of your little achievements! You 
were beginning to account for your existence; you were 
beginning to establish your right to live; you were enter- 
ing on the proud satisfactions of being useful. 

Nature begins very early to take care of our souls 
by her subtle calls to the business of life. At the be- 
ginning the duty of work usually wears a halo. Every 
boy who has been reared on a farm can remember 



WORK 111 

the day of wonder and of glory when he was first 
permitted to drive a team of horses. It meant being 
a man, and taking a man's place in the work to be 
done; it meant helpfulness; it meant being of use in 
the world and paying for one's keep. Alas for those 
unfortunate sons of prosperity who never enjoy the 
pride and glory of such a day as that, who are never 
thrilled by such premonitions of what it means to be 
a man I 

The Idle Person Is a Moral Pauper, No Matter How 
Rich He May Be. — You see an idle person is an im- 
moral person. His lack of occupation exposes him to 
temptations to which his lack of strength makes him an 
easy victim. He is likely to fall into vices of one sort 
or another. But apart from that peril, and supposing 
it to be escaped, still the idle person is an immoral 
person. He is consuming without producing; he is 
using that for which he did not pay. No matter how 
rich he may think himself or others may think him, he 
is playing the part of a pauper in the world's life. He 
is anti-social, for he lives upon the labor of others, and 
he refuses to contribute to the common good. Dishon- 
est and unfriendly, he is the enemy and not the brother 
of men. Whether or not we find a work that we enjoy, 
we must understand that it is our duty to work, and 
that idleness is wicked. 

To Degrade Oneself Is an Unpardonable Sin. — I 
suppose that every one will concede that it is his duty 
to make the most of himself, to develop such qualities 
as he possesses, to make as much of his life as he can. 
There are a good many elements that go to the mak- 



112 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

ing of the most of oneself — education, both general 
and special, freedom and responsibility, competition 
and co-operation with others, and so on. But you will 
observe that they all centre about the work that one 
does. Wholly apart from its external productions, 
work builds the worker; it makes stature. The idlers 
are all dwarfs. 

The first sins, and the ones that are never pardoned, 
are the sins against oneself. To degrade oneself, to 
neglect one's mind, to deform one's own character, to 
dwarf one's own soul — who is there to forgive such 
sins as these? The one who seeks to avoid work is 
guilty of them all. You will observe that the boys 
and girls in school or college who are looking for 
"snap courses" never get much in the way of an 
education. Well, I have long observed that those 
who are looking for "snap jobs" in life never make 
much of a success. What is of more consequence 
is that they never make much of themselves. The 
laws of life are rigid and terrible in their allegiance to 
truth and honesty. Trickery is defeated from the 
very start. That is what the ancients meant when 
they said that "the gods play with loaded dice." The 
laws of life cannot be outwitted. There is only one 
road to the goal, only one way in which to make the 
most of oneself, and that is the way of honest work. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Ruskin's lecture on "Work" in The Crown of Wild Olive. 
Chapters on "Work" in Cabot's What Men Live By. Henry 
van Dyke's The Toiling of Felix. 



CHAPTER XI 

PLAY 

The Difficulty of Taking Play Seriously. — I suppose 
that if I were to begin this chapter by saying that play 
is one of the duties of life, you would utter a mental 
complaint: "Now, you are spoiling all our fun." And 
you would be right. So I am sorely put to it to know 
how to begin. Play is a duty, but when it appears as 
a duty it is spoiled — it ceases, indeed, to be play at 
all. That is the trouble with the revival of interest 
in play in our time. We are taking play too seriously, 
working it into the routine of life as one of the things 
to be taken regularly like a medicine, with the result 
that play becomes only a new form of work. When 
the child has finished his task he is told: "Now you 
may run out and play," and he goes bounding to his 
liberty. But if he were told at any set time: "Now 
you must go out and play," he would go sadly and 
reluctantly to play a demure and joyless game. When 
it is robbed of the sense of liberty, play has the very 
life taken out of it. When one plays because he must, 
or because he is paid for it, like the professional base- 
ball players, it is no longer play, but work. 

And yet play has an important place in life, and it 
must have serious consideration. Play is the counter- 
part of work. One of the values of work is that it en- 
ables one to enjoy his play; and one of the values of 

113 



114 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

play is that it enables one to do good work. As they 
say about the food of animals and men, both are neces- 
sary to a "well-balanced ration" for the support of 
life. 

Play Is One of the Aids to Virtue. — What immedi- 
ately concerns us now is that both are necessary to 
good morals. Play is one of the great aids to virtue. 
It co-operates with work to make life sane and whole- 
some. But to do that it must be as different as pos- 
sible from work, and the difference begins in this, that 
work is a duty while play is a privilege; one is more or 
less compulsory and must always involve some dis- 
agreeable tasks, while the other is spontaneous, free, 
and it must be agreeable or it ceases to be play. 

The Lack of Play Produces Moral Deformity. — We 
will avoid our difficulties by saying that play is the 
right of every one. One of the most pitiable sights is 
that of little children who do not know how to play. 
It is a sad commentary on our conduct of affairs in 
this land where every one is supposed to have an 
equal right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness," that the playground associations have to em- 
ploy people to teach the children how to play. If these 
children had enjoyed their rights they would have 
known how to play. Play is so completely normal 
that we teach it to ourselves, when we have our life 
free and unimpaired. It is as natural as walking. 
The cruel bandaging of girls' feet which used to be 
practised in China destroyed the power to walk. 
Something like that has happened to the souls of chil- 
dren who have not learned how to play. 



PLAY 115 

But only a little less sad than the spectacle of chil- 
dren who do not know how to play is that of grown 
folks who have forgotten how to play. They, too, must 
have been subjected to some cruel repression which 
has deformed them; they have been deprived of their 
rights. Perhaps they did it themselves, under some 
mistaken notion as to their dignity or their duty. But 
their plight is still a sad one just the same. They are 
not only missing the pleasure of play, but they have 
lost something of the power to do good work. They 
have also lost one of the safeguards of goodness, which 
Nature is careful to provide. 

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy; 
All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy." 

There is much wisdom in this old jingle, and it is ap- 
plicable to us at all stages in life. We have no right 
to be dull; it is an injury to our neighbors. And cer- 
tainly we have no wish to be dull; it is an injury to 
ourselves. But dull we shall certainly be if our work 
is not mixed with play. We all have a right to play 
because we all need to play. 

Play Is Occupied with Doing Useless Things. — But 
if we are going to take the subject of play seriously 
it does not mean that we are to take our play seriously. 
Our work is serious, but our play is not. It is of the 
very essence of play that it shall not be serious. If 
you have ever seen a horse taken from his harness and 
turned loose in a field, you have seen how play is to 
be taken. He runs, kicks up his heels, throws himself 
upon the ground and rolls in a perfect abandon of joy. 



116 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

A healthy boy will act in very much the same way, 
and so would a healthy girl if certain prim proprieties 
did not forbid. In our play we do useless things, such 
as turning somersaults or knocking a ball about over 
a field. We could get as much physical exercise out of 
doing useful things, but it would spoil the fun and so 
take away the reality of play. 

The first purpose of play, therefore, is sheer enjoy- 
ment. It may accomplish other things, important 
and useful things, as we shall see. For instance, a 
bath is a useful thing; but what boy ever went 
swimming with a mind intent either upon cleanliness 
or health ? If either cleanliness or health were upper- 
most in his mind, he would have to be compelled to 
go swimming. Men are a little different. They are 
governed more by reason and considerations of utility. 
So they will play golf faithfully out of a sense of duty 
— I should say that they will do golf out of a sense of 
duty — it is no longer play. 

The thrilling sense of liberty is a part of the enjoy- 
ment of play. It is an escape into the boundlessness 
of life. The restraints are cast off; the routine is 
abandoned; custom is put aside and habits are broken 
off. One can go where he will and do what he wants to. 
He has no master, he has no duties; he doesn't even 
have to be reasonable. There is an intoxication in 
this sense of freedom, the escape from a humdrum, 
regulated world back to primeval haphazard. 

Play Is the Counterpart of Work, and Requires 
Change. — I do not mean, however, that play is gov- 
erned only by caprice. Play is the romance of life, and 



PLAY 117 

so it naturally falls into rhythm, as in songs and 
dances. Play is the rehearsal of life, and so it adopts 
rules for the games. This unregulated world of play 
must still be subjected to a certain degree of regulation 
in order to keep it enjoyable, and also to attain the 
ends which wise Nature has always in view. 

And the first rule laid down is that play must 
give a complete change. Tired muscles are allowed 
to relax while new muscles are called into action. So 
we actually rest while we keep going. We are vexed 
with the professional singer because she will not sing 
for our entertainment in an evening company. But 
she has come to the party for amusement and recre- 
ation just as the rest of us have done. To sing would 
be play for those of us whose work is in something 
else, but for her it would be work. She also wants a 
change. I have heard farmers, who had been following 
the plough all day, express their amazed contempt for 
golf. They couldn't understand why men would walk 
the fields all afternoon when they didn't have to do so. 
Golf would provide no change for them, and so would 
not be enjoyable. On the other hand, one whose work 
is at a desk is foolish to seek his recreation in chess or 
cards. He should know that the lack of change takes 
away from both the pleasure and the benefit of such 
amusements. It seems at least plausible that if we 
were wholly free to choose our play we should take 
some form which would give us the greatest change 
from our work. In general it may be said that if our 
work is sedentary we should seek our play in athletics, 
as all students do; if our labor is physically exhausting, 



118 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

our play should be physically restful and mentally ex- 
citing. 

Play Must Be Honorable or It Ceases to Be Play. — 
Another element in enjoyable play is competition. As 
soon as play takes the definite form of games, we play 
to win. It is the contest that calls forth our best 
efforts, and we see here how deep is the joy in doing 
one's best. And yet there is a certain chivalry that 
enters into the contest, or it ceases to give full plea- 
sure. The one who is so eager to win that he is willing 
to cheat, is making work of the game; it ceases to be 
pure play, and so loses its power to give pleasure. The 
one who is so eager to win that he loses with a bad 
grace, is also making work of the game; he spoils the 
fun for himself and everybody else. Our competitive 
games must be played by rule. Observance of the 
rules of the game enters very deeply into the enjoy- 
ment of play. 

The Right to Play Belongs Only to the One Who 
Works. — A word of warning has to be introduced 
somewhere, and it may as well come in here as any- 
where. I have said that play is the natural right of 
every one. I should qualify that. Play is the natural 
right of every one who works. Upon the second half 
of the old rhyme I have made no comment: "All play 
and no work makes Jack a mere toy." Certainly no 
sensible Jack wants to become a mere toy. There are 
people who do not play enough, who take life too seri- 
ously, and in consequence become hard and narrow. 
But there are also people who play too much, who 
take life too frivolously, and in consequence become 



PLAY 119 

shallow and stupid. There is no invigorating change 
in the life that is either all work or all play. I suppose 
nobody has a duller time of it than the people whose 
sole occupation is pleasure-seeking. Take, for instance, 
those silly people who make cards an occupation in- 
stead of a pastime. Cards have ceased to be play, and 
have become work. Now one has a right to do useless 
things occasionally for amusement; but surely no one 
has a right to do useless things all the time as a business. 

There is one great rule that has its application every- 
where in life; it is the rule of moderation. Moderation 
means frequent change; it means leaving off at proper 
intervals and turning to something else; for the mat- 
ter before us just now, it means the consistent alterna- 
tion of work and play. Excessive indulgence in play 
is injurious in many ways; it is sufficient at this point 
to say that it destroys the wholesome enjoyment of 
play itself. 

Play Is a Trap Set by Virtue, with Pleasure for a 
Bait. — But what has all this to do with morals ? Much 
every way, as we shall see when we come to consider 
the subtle purposes and the evident results of play. 
Nature has many cunning devices by which she en- 
traps us into virtue, and play is one of them. We will 
not forget that the immediate purpose of play is sim- 
ply enjoyment, and that the essential elements of it 
are all conducive to that particular end. But under 
that disguise of enjoyment there are hidden a number 
of wholesome things. The pleasure of play is like the 
sugar-coating put on medicines more or less disagree- 
able. For instance, what work that is ever done in- 



120 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

volves such strenuous and often violent exercise as 
does play ? The pleasure there is in it entices us, over- 
coming our common laziness. We play for the sake 
of the enjoyment and take the wholesome exercise 
without thinking of it. Play is rich in such by-prod- 
ucts, which, it may be, are much more valuable than 
the simple object it has in view. 

The general purpose which Nature, wise in her cun- 
ning, conceals under the mask of play is recreation. 
We use that word as a synonym for play without 
thinking of its meaning. It means re-creation, mak- 
ing over, being born again. Now when a thing is cre- 
ated it is new, and when it is re-created it is made 
new again. When one is born he is very young, and 
when he is re-born he is taken back to youth. But 
new things are comparatively perfect; the flaws come 
from the wear and tear of age. We are born healthy; 
diseases come later. So re-creation takes us back to 
the soundness of the new, to the health of youth. 
It is restoration to health of body and mind. Old 
age itself is a disease, the last of them all, and the 
only one that must always be fatal. Recreation chal- 
lenges old age, stays its insidious approach as long 
as possible. 

Hence the importance of play for men and women 
as well as for boys and girls. But let that pass for 
the present. It is sufficient to say that the disguised 
purpose of play in the economy of life is re-creation; 
that it restores the years which time has stolen, makes 
us younger and stronger for the business of life. It 
takes us back to health. And when we remember the 



PLAY 121 

close relation there is between health and morals, we 
shall perceive the moral significance of play. Vice is 
a disease whose great preventive is the resistance of 
healthy bodies and healthy minds. So you see there 
is a certain literalness in my saying that the enjoy- 
ment for which we play is the sugar-coating for the im- 
portant medicine of re-creation. 

Play Is a Moral Safety- Valve. — But there is another 
side to this, which upon close consideration is not 
another side at all. Sin sometimes appears as the mere 
excesses of high spirits. And play is the safety-valve 
for the escape of surplus steam. One of the most en- 
couraging things in our day is to see how the diversion 
of play is cleaning up the morals of the world. Diver- 
sion is another word which we may profitably separ- 
ate into its parts to get its meaning. It is to di-vert, 
to turn aside. The dangerous impulses which drive 
people into sin are di-verted by play into innocent 
and wholesome acts. You cannot remember how our 
schools and colleges used to be filled with deviltry and 
vice. Perhaps you know of some mischief still remain- 
ing of which I am ignorant. But I know how athletics 
has wonderfully cleaned up the school and college life 
of America. In like manner the automobile and golf 
have been cleaning up the life of older men. It used 
to be that almost the only change that strong men 
found from work was wickedness. The sports are 
supplanting vice as a diversion from the cares and the 
work of the world. Alas, for multitudes of the un- 
fortunate in our great cities this moral safety-valve is 
not yet available! 



122 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

The Young Should Learn Games that May Be the 
Diversion of Later Years. — One solemn duty let me 
lay upon you. It is not enough that you have games 
which you can enjoy now. The time will come when 
baseball will be too much for your stiffening muscles. 
But the time will never come when you will not need 
to play. So before it is too late, learn some game that 
will always be both available and enjoyable. That 
is desirable for the continuance of your enjoyment, for 
the preservation of youth and health, and for a per- 
petual resource in your hours of leisure. It is sad to 
see a man achieve leisure in his mature years, and then 
not know what to do with it. The man is poor in 
spite of his wealth who has no resources for his days 
off. The fishing-rod and the golf-stick are wonderful 
tools of happiness and virtue, because one can use 
them as long as he is able to walk. He never has to 
turn to the gaming-table or the whiskey-bottle for the 
corrupting diversions of the tired man. Just as you 
learn accounting or chemistry for the use it will be to 
you in after-life, so you should acquire diversions that 
will amuse and rest you, and that will last you through 
life. 

That is one great reason for your learning to enjoy 
music, art, literature, science. These tastes, once ac- 
quired, constitute an inexhaustible wealth, a trea- 
sure laid up "where moth and rust do not corrupt," 
useful as long as you live. Play is to be added to these 
accomplishments as a permanent resource. 

Play Imitates Life and so Prepares for the Great 
Game. — I have spoken of play as a change from the 



PLAY 123 

routine of serious work. But we have to remember 
that play also imitates life, and imitates the most 
serious things in life, such as keeping house or having 
school. You can all remember, no doubt, "playing 
house " and "playing school." We give up such 
games as these very young, but we keep on imitating 
life. The complex games of youth and maturity, while 
they give pleasure by the very unreasonableness and 
uselessness of their aims, are yet governed by rules 
that are modelled on life, and so they prepare and dis- 
cipline us for The Great Game. 

Whatever we may come to think of competition in 
business, and whatever we may decide to do with it, 
life is a great contest in which the prize of victory 
goes to the winner. There is no getting rid of that 
fact. So the chivalry that is cultivated and developed 
in the games is turned to good account later on. When 
we have learned to play fair and to abhor all cheating 
at the game; when we have drilled into ourselves the 
high sense of honor in the strife to win; when we have 
learned to put our very best into the contest of play; 
when we have acquired the ability to win modestly 
and to be good losers; then we have so far prepared 
ourselves for good and honorable service in the bigger 
game in which we shall soon be assigned our parts. 
Play is a part of our education, and not the least im- 
portant part. The Duke of Wellington said that the 
field of Waterloo was won on the playgrounds of 
Rugby and Eton. Perhaps it was that saying that 
suggested the stirring poem by Henry Newbolt with 
which I will close this chapter. 



124 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

"There's a breathless hush in the close to-night — 

Ten to make and the match to win — 
A bumping pitch and a blinding light, 

An hour to play, and the last man in. 
And it's not for the sake of a ribbon'd coat, 

Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 
But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote — 

'Play up ! play up ! and play the game.' 

The sand of the desert is sodden red — 

Red with the wreck of a square that broke — 
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead, 

And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. 
The river of death has brimmed his banks, 

And England's far, and honor a name, 
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks, 

'Play up ! play up ! and play the game.' 

This is the word that year by year 

While in her place the school is set 
Every one of her sons must hear, 

And none that hears it dare forget. 
This they all with a joyful mind 

Bear through life like a torch in flame, 
And, falling, fling to the host behind — 

'Play up ! play up ! and play the game/ " 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Chapters on "Play" in Cabot's What Men Live by. "Days 
Off," by Henry van Dyke, in the volume of the same title. I 
should hope that all good boys, and good girls, too, in these pro- 
gressive days, would become acquainted with Isaac Walton's 
Compleat Angler. 



CHAPTER XII 

LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 

The Petty Interests of Men Engaged in Great Affairs. 
— In Charles O'Malley, a book not much read in the 
present day, Charles Lever gives us what is supposed 
to be an accurate picture of army life in the time of 
the Napoleonic wars. Any one taking up the book to- 
day will probably read some parts of it with mingled 
surprise and disgust. The young officers are so blind 
to the great issues which are at stake in the momen- 
tous struggle, and are so completely absorbed in petty 
questions of precedence, of personal honor according 
to the prevailing code, and of pleasure and private 
gain! Some are intent upon making a profit out of 
their opportunities, and with no very great shame to 
themselves when they are found out. Others seem to 
be wholly occupied with jealousies, intrigues, and 
quarrels among themselves. Some are even willing 
that a battle should be lost rather than that a hated 
rival should obtain the honor of victory. Again and 
again the purposes of a campaign are put in jeopardy 
in order that an officer may enrich himself with plun- 
der, or that a question of personal honor may be set- 
tled in the prevailing mode. In one instance at least 
the bearer of important and pressing despatches from 
the commander-in-chief halts to arrange and fight a 
duel. 

Impressed as we are to-day with the importance 

125 



126 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

of the issues in that gigantic contest, we cannot but 
wonder at the little-mindedness of the men who could 
thus turn aside to trivial matters, forgetful of their 
country's interests, faithless to the great cause in 
which they were enlisted. We think that men engaged 
in so solemn and dreadful a task might have risen 
above the perverted sense of honor which divided the 
officers of an army against each other, that they ought 
to have forgotten themselves in the presence of a 
great peril to their country and to the world. 

And yet this graphic picture of army life in the time 
of Napoleon is fairly typical of all life. The world 
moves forward in a great campaign against the enemies 
of human welfare, and the cause is constantly jeop- 
ardized by the selfish bickerings of those who are more 
intent upon private advantage or personal distinction 
than upon the common good. Progress is impeded by 
this little-mindedness which diverts and dissipates our 
stock of human energy. We stop to quarrel among 
ourselves, to play a petty game of personal precedence, 
to engage in the wasteful battle of competition, failing 
to see that our private interest is wrapped up in the 
general good. 

Men Do Wrong Because They Cannot See the 
World for Themselves. — An important consideration 
in this connection is that all sin is little. It is the vice 
of small minds. In one instance it is the preference of 
a present pleasure that will last but an hour to a future 
good that will extend over years. It may be that it is 
a weakness of will, which makes us incapable of self- 
denial; that while seeing the price we are paying for 



LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 127 

an indulgence, we cannot practise self-control. But 
more commonly it is the preference of a private good 
to a public good, in which public good, of course, we 
would share. 

It seems very likely that many of our moral distinc- 
tions arose from the perception that certain acts were 
harmful to others. The community saw that theft, 
for instance, was a wrong done to the community, and 
therefore decreed that theft was crime. The moral 
law is enacted to protect the community against the 
individual. That is not the whole truth, but it is a 
part of the truth. The moral law springs out of an 
eternal sense of righteousness; but the community 
insists upon it and enacts it into specific codes for its 
own protection. 

We have an illustration of this in the criminal codes 
of all civilized states. The prosecution of crime is in 
the name of the state. When a man commits murder, 
the case does not stand: The friends of the murdered 
man against the criminal; it stands: The state against 
the criminal. The private crime is a public injury. 
It is the act of a man who sets a private advantage 
or a private pleasure against the common good. 

Sin is due to little-mindedness. It is the short- 
sightedness of those who cannot see beyond a present 
gratification. It is the individualism of those who 
cannot see the world for themselves. It is the pro- 
vincialism of those who are ignorant of all that lies 
beyond the frontiers of their own little lives. In the 
last analysis it is the blindness of those who cannot 
see God and are not conscious of eternal laws. 



128 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

Ignorance Dwells in a Small World. — One of the 

favorite ways of describing sin is to say that it is dark- 
ness, as ignorance is darkness — the limitation of an 
undeveloped mind. The effect of darkness is to make 
things dim, or to hide them altogether. But if you will 
stop to think of it, the effect of darkness is simply to 
make one's world small. When it grows dark the hori- 
zon disappears, distant objects disappear, wide views 
narrow down, and there is left just a little circle about 
oneself. Within that little circle one must live, seeing 
but dimly what it contains, and all unconscious of 
the undiscovered world that lies beyond. The world 
of sin is a little world; the life of sin occupies a small 
place. So the word that is said about moral progress 
is the same word that is said about intellectual prog- 
ress; it is enlightenment, the widening of the view, 
the enlargement of the world within which one 
lives. 

Think of any sin, and you will recognize its petti- 
ness, its little-mindedness. Think of the corresponding 
virtue, and you will recognize its relative largeness, 
its big-mindedness. Marshal Ney, "the bravest of 
the brave," was once asked if he had ever felt fear. 
His curt answer was: "I never had time for it." We 
can understand that answer. In the hours of peril 
through which he had passed his mind was wholly pre- 
occupied with big things, the handling of his corps or 
his army, the disposition of troops, the winning of the 
battle. 

A big-minded man does not brood over his wrongs 
or waste his time in resenting injuries; he has some- 



LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 1 29 

thing better to think about. A little-minded man is 
full of resentments; the darkness has shut out the 
wider prospect. Enlightenment is the emergence upon 
a larger world, where there are great interests to occupy 
the mind, great tasks to engage all of one's powers. 

The Pig at the Feast. — Selfishness is at the root of 
all sin. Selfishness is being interested either wholly 
or supremely in oneself. The selfish person is either 
indifferent to the good of others, or, when there is a 
direct clash of interests, hostile to the good of others. 
He must be gratified and happy, no matter how many 
other people must be deprived and unhappy to accom- 
plish it. He must be successful and prosperous, no 
matter who may suffer to bring it about. He is there- 
fore the enemy of the common good, since the com- 
mon good is derived from the contributions and self- 
denials of all. He is like the boy who brings nothing 
to the picnic, and yet will have the pick of the good 
things to eat, and gorges himself at his companions' 
expense. He is the pig of every feast. His hand is 
against every man, and naturally every man's hand is 
against him. He is anti-social and a public enemy. 
The moral law and all the laws were originally made 
for him, to keep him out of the public world, or to 
make him behave himself as he roams through it. 
Perhaps it would be better to say that the laws were 
made for his enlightenment, to show him the larger 
world that lay outside his own little circle within the 
darkness. For the world of selfishness is a little world, 
bounded by a single individual, and the smallest in- 
dividual in the world at that. 



130 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

The Little-Mindedness of the Family. — But fortu- 
nately it is extremely difficult for any one to live alto- 
gether by himself and for himself. We are born into 
a social group, the family. Very early in life we learn 
that our own interests are interwined with the inter- 
ests of others, and that each member of the family has 
to give up something and do something for the others. 
This primary lesson in unselfishness is not always well 
learned, it is true. There are families where life is a 
perpetual quarrel, each one claiming his rights as 
against all the others. But usually the primary les- 
son in social privilege is learned in a degree. The in- 
terest of the individual is merged in the interest of the 
family and the first great social unit is duly formed. 

We are interested in our own folks and loyal to our 
families. That is a very admirable thing, but it is very 
unfortunate if the social growth of our minds stops 
there. Suppose that we are so completely wrapped up 
in the welfare and happiness of our own people that 
we have no care for outside interests, that we are will- 
ing that others should be wronged in order that our 
own family may prosper! There is a familiar parody 
on a family prayer that is not without concrete illus- 
tration. The head of the family is supposed to pray 
in this wise: 

"Lord, bless me and my wife, 
My son John and his wife, 
Us four 
And no more." 

That is more than a bit of humorous doggerel; there 
are families that are devout in about that measure and 



LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 131 

that spirit. There are people whose interests and sym- 
pathies have very little wider range than that. They 
are very little people who inhabit a very little world. 

The Little-Mindedness of the Community. — We 
pass on to the next larger social unit, the community. 
If we are properly educated in public spirit we are 
proud of our town, of its improvements, its buildings 
and streets and industries, its schools, and its social 
life; we are jealous of its good name and eager for its 
prosperity. All of which is very right. People ought 
to be public-spirited in their communal life, and they 
are very short-sighted indeed if they think they can 
live in a community and not be of it, nor contribute 
to its good. 

But suppose that our public spirit stop with our 
town or city; that we are so wrapped up in the life of 
our own community that we are content to remain 
ignorant of other communities or indifferent to their 
needs ! It is the common reproach of the country vil- 
lage, not always deserved, that its life is narrow, its 
people concerned with the doings of their neighbors 
and ignorant of the great world outside. 

"They take the rustic murmur of their bourg 
For the great wave that echoes round the world." 

But it is a fault that is not confined to the little 
town. As narrow a provincialism as is to be found 
anywhere may be found in the great cities, where it 
expresses itself in ridicule of the countryman, who is 
often a much bigger-minded man than his city cousin, 
shut in among the skyscrapers. It is sometimes very 



132 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

difficult to get the people of a great city roused to any 
interest in the broad problems of the nation, and still 
more difficult to induce them to forego some advan- 
tage to their city for the good of the nation. Now the 
man whose public spirit is limited by the borders of 
his own community, whether it be a rural or an urban 
community, suffers from arrested growth of the mind. 
His social consciousness is near-sighted and little. 

The Little-Mindedness of Class Spirit. — There is 
another form of community than that which is mea- 
sured in terms of geography, the community of class. 
People are divided by horizontal cleavages into the 
educated and the uneducated, the rich and the poor, 
the capitalist and the laborer, the trader and the 
producer, and so on. One of the alarming things of 
our time is the new emphasis put upon this division 
of interests and the passionate loyalty to class that is 
being developed with the inevitable bitterness of hos- 
tility between the classes. I say it is alarming, for it 
sometimes threatens to undo the whole work of de- 
mocracy and to put a permanent check on the progress 
of mankind. Taken by itself, it is sometimes admi- 
rable and sometimes not. It seems good and hopeful 
that the poor are becoming more loyal to each other, 
and combining for mutual aid. But when the rich 
combine for the advantage of their class, it is a dif- 
ferent matter. And yet the combination of the one 
class will inevitably provoke the combination of the 
other. 

When the good people unite, it promises well for 
the community and the country. When bad people 



LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 133 

unite, it is ominous. The old saw has it that "birds 
of a feather flock together." That is inevitable. But 
when class loyalty reaches the point of unreason and 
injustice where it means war upon the other classes, 
or even indifference to the rights of the other classes, 
it stands self-condemned as unsocial and little-minded. 
The rich snob who is indifferent to the life and wants 
and aspirations of the poor is a contemptible creature; 
but don't miss the fact that he is little-minded. Only 
a little less contemptible is the educated snob, who 
looks down upon those who have not enjoyed his ad- 
vantages. He has missed one great purpose of his 
education, the big-mindedness which would draw him 
into intimate sympathy with all classes and conditions 
of men. 

Now you will all find yourselves identified with some 
class of people, either by inheritance or by your own 
effort and choice. As things are in this world, that is 
inevitable. One can't be everything at once, rich and 
poor, educated and ignorant, employer and working 
man. But with whatever class your immediate inter- 
ests are identified, never permit your life and labor to 
be bounded by your class. Live in a larger world 
than that. As individual selfishness seeks to thrive 
upon wrong done to others, so does class selfishness 
lead to acts of injustice. Social righteousness means 
a constant relinquishment of class privilege in order 
that other great classes may not be wronged and un- 
happy. 

Patriotism Degraded by National Little-Minded- 
ness. — But we pass on to the nation, the largest unit 



134 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

of organized society. Public spirit finds one of its larg- 
est expressions in the sentiment of patriotism. Love 
of country takes us out of ourselves; it means in its 
final tests the sacrifice of self for the sake of the great 
community, the nation. We love our country, and we 
ought to love it passionately. It stands for some 
things worth living to maintain, and worth dying to 
defend. Its institutions are the priceless treasure ac- 
cumulated by ages of human struggle and sacrifice. 
Shame on us if we ever value this treasure lightly! 

But patriotism is a noble sentiment that is easily 
prostituted to base purposes. "My country, right or 
wrong/' is not a just or admirable motto. Scarcely 
less to be condemned is the arbitrary claim that our 
country is always right and that opposing countries 
always are wrong. Only little minds can be satisfied 
with such self-applause. 

Every nation thinks itself better than any other 
nation. This is inevitable, and therefore pardonable. 
But suppose we go on to despise the people of other 
nations, to be indifferent to their rights, to hate them, 
and try to injure them in the name of patriotism! 
Suppose we permit our patriotism to pass over into 
blind and unreasoning prejudice! Have we not gen- 
erally been determined to believe everything good of 
our own nation and ready to be persuaded of any 
evil of other nations? Have we not been ready 
with apology for our nation's aggressions and quick 
with our resentment of other nations' aggressions? 
Our histories are too often written more with a 
view to stimulating national pride than for the pur- 



LITTLE-M IN DEDN ESS 1 35 

pose of giving accurate information as to the facts. 
Very likely in your study of American history you 
have learned to think of Major Andre as a spy who 
suffered a just death, and of Nathan Hale as a pa- 
triot who was martyred. Did you ever pause to in- 
quire how an Englishman would view them? As 
matter of fact, what essential difference is there in the 
things the two men did, or in the deaths they suffered ? 
When a foreigner lifts his voice to say that his country 
is in the wrong, we exclaim: "There is a man broad- 
minded enough to be just!" When an American con- 
fesses that his country is in the wrong, we cry "traitor!" 
And the people of the other countries act in the same 
way. 

You see there is a German mind and a French mind 
and an English mind, each one only as big as the coun- 
try it represents. Here in America, where we have 
people from all nations mingling, it might be supposed 
that we should have what is called "the international 
mind"; but instead we have the American mind, 
which is only another variety of the old species. Our 
human outlook becomes blind at the national fron- 
tiers; our public spirit has its geographical limits; we 
do not feel the obligation to be just to other than our 
own people. 

The result is profoundly damaging to the well- 
being of the world. A measure is proposed which 
promises advantage to our own country, and the fact 
that it must be at the expense of other countries 
does not deter us, but even awakens feelings and 
expressions of delight. Our selfish patriotism even 



136 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

stifles the sense of self-respect which would make a 
nation too proud to prey upon its neighbors. Our 
circle within the darkness is so small that we cannot 
see the wrong we do to those beyond. It is the sin 
of our little-mindedness. 

Where the Race Spirit Clashes with the Common 
Good. — But there is yet one other phase of the matter 
to be considered. We have our various races — the 
Latin race, the Teutonic race, the Slavic race, and so 
on. Naturally each of the dominant races at least 
thinks itself superior to all the others. Here in our 
country we are accustomed to hear high praise of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, and often from the lips of one who 
has no drop of either Angle or Saxon blood in his 
veins. It is extremely difficult for us to acknowledge 
that any other race is the equal of the Anglo-Saxon, 
although we may grudgingly concede good qualities 
in the other dominant races. But it comes with a 
shock of surprise to us to learn that the Chinaman 
has precisely the same feeling, and looks down on all 
the Western races as barbarians. 

Now race prejudice is one of the bitterest and most 
mischievous sentiments in the world. It is inhuman 
and cruel. We used to hunt Indians as we did bears, 
and shot them down with as little compunction. We 
felt that they were not quite human, since they be- 
longed to an inferior race. Judge Taney, in the fa- 
mous Dred Scott decision, quoted the opinion as gen- 
erally held throughout the world that "the negro had 
no rights which a white man was bound to respect." 
The ignorant and unskilled immigrant to our shores 



LITTLE-MINDEDNESS 137 

is ruthlessly exploited, recklessly exposed to horrible 
perils, partly with the feeling that his well-being is of 
little consequence, his life of little value, since he be- 
longs to an alien and inferior race. The ancient hor- 
rors of the slave-trade and the modern horrors of the 
ivory-trade illustrate the cruelty of the supposedly ad- 
vanced races in dealing with those that are confessedly 
backward. 

The trouble with this race prejudice is very like that 
of national prejudice, only that it is deeper-seated; 
to the offense of a foreign tongue is added the offense of 
a differently colored skin. It lacks the world outlook; 
it is ignorant; it is a darkness that blinds our eyes; it 
identifies us with a fraction of mankind and not the 
whole; it is ignoble and mean. 

In Order to Be Just We Must Be Just to All With- 
out Prejudice. — Now a great part of the evil that 
afflicts the world, and of the greater evil that threatens 
it, is due very directly to this little-mindedness of 
men, putting the good of an individual, a class, a 
nation above the common good of mankind. And 
one of the greatest and most urgent of the tasks that 
confront us is that of breaking down these successive 
barriers of selfishness and ignorance which separate 
men into hostile camps. Perhaps that is the next great 
step to be taken in the civilizing of the world. It be- 
gins with the public spirit of the community, bringing 
the people of a neighborhood into friendly co-opera- 
tion, calling the individual away from his selfishness 
to work for the common good; it ends in the brother- 
hood of man, the friendliness and the common good- 



138 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

will of the world. We now have the friendship and 
loyalty which live within a community, a class, a na- 
tion, a race; we have the brotherhood of some men. 
"The brotherhood of man" is as yet only an alluring 
phrase; until it becomes a reality the world can never 
escape from its ancient miseries and be happy. 

You see we cannot be just till we are just to all men 
without prejudice. We live within a narrow and con- 
fined world until our sympathies are enlisted in behalf 
of all who suffer or are wronged. We must escape from 
the reign of narrow and selfish prejudices to the rule 
of eternal laws. The darkness of human enmities is 
becoming unendurable, and the hearts of men are cry- 
ing for the light. 

Covet the Imperial Mind. — And so I say to you 
young people, hear and heed the call of the age for a 
big-mindedness that, like the "touch of nature," will 
make "the whole world kin." Take large views of 
life and its responsibilities. Work on the big plans 
that are coming to their birth in the evolution of soci- 
ety. Be citizens of the world, with imperial minds. 
In the sweep of your sympathies take in all classes, all 
races. Command your particular tasks, whatever they 
may be, to the service of the common good. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

Poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Chambered Nautilus. 
Lowell's Stanzas on Freedom, beginning: "Men whose boast it 
is that ye — " George Eliot's The Choir Invisible. 



CHAPTER XIII 

LIBERTY AND MASTERY 

Liberty Is One of Our Most Precious Possessions. — 

Laurence Sterne's famous starling in the cage had 
but one thing to say, a pitiful plaint, which it repeated 
over and over again: "I can't get out! I can't get 
out!" The menagerie has long ceased to interest me; 
it is too pathetic. I do not like to see the panting 
bear swing wearily back and forth behind the bars of 
his cage, still hoping against hope that he may find a 
way of escape. All the poor beasts shut out from their 
own natural lives to be exhibited as a spectacle — of 
course it has its educational value and it gratifies 
curiosity, but it does not appeal to me now. It is too 
sad a picture of the ancient crime against liberty. 

There are some people who are housed in castle-like 
buildings who are yet very unhappy. They have 
many causes for unhappiness, but the chief of them all 
is this, that they have forfeited their liberty; they 
can't get out. The slave, however kindly he was 
treated, always longed for liberty. Often he did not 
know what to do with his liberty if it were granted, 
but he wanted it anyway. Very often he was incapable 
of caring for himself as well as his master cared for 
him; but still, as Mr. Lincoln said: "No man ever 
thought slavery a good thing for himself." 

139 



140 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

The battle for liberty has been a long one; we trace 
it back to the very dawn of history. Indeed we can- 
not imagine a time when men did not wish to be free, 
or being free would not make a struggle to maintain 
their liberties. Liberty is one of the most precious 
treasures of life, more precious even than life itself, 
because without it life is not worth the living. Patrick 
Henry but expressed the everlasting passion of the 
human heart when he cried: "As for me, give me lib- 
erty, or give me death." 

With the progress of civilization we are learning to 
hate war as an irrational and ineffective way of set- 
tling human disputes as well as for its waste and cruelty. 
But for all that, bondage continues to be far more hate- 
ful than war. We are accustomed to make a great 
deal of our American freedom, and we do well to make 
a great deal of it. Even in our most extravagant and 
impassioned oratory we do not make too much of it. 
It has cost a great deal in blood and treasure, but it is 
worth all it cost. It were far better that all the piled- 
up wealth of our country were sunk, our proud cities 
tumbled in ruins, our fields laid waste, and our young 
men sacrificed in myriads, rather than that we should 
lose our inheritance of freedom. Liberty is as precious 
as that. 

The Love of Liberty Has a Profound Moral Basis. — 
But why is it so infinitely valuable? Well, ordinarily 
we do not feel it necessary to explain to ourselves why 
liberty is so exceeding dear to us. It seems sufficient 
to say that liberty is sweet and slavery is bitter, or 
that liberty is noble and bondage base. But the hu- 



LIBERTY AND MASTERY 141 

man spirit ever moves at the impulse of reasons far 
deeper than the things it sees and defines. The love 
of liberty is justified by moral considerations of the 
very greatest importance. 

Every creature has the desire to be itself, and to live 
its own life in its own way; and that is the very es- 
sence of liberty. The cage was not the natural home 
of the starling; it could not be itself nor live its own life 
in its own way within the cage. The human being 
cannot be himself, nor live his own life in his own way 
while his conscience, his mind, and his will are not free. 
So the love of liberty has the eternal veracity of Nature 
behind it. You cannot be entirely true to yourself 
unless you are free. 

Moreover, we say that "all men are created free 
and equal," by which we mean to imply that freedom 
and equality are natural rights, which cannot justly 
be taken away. Righteousness means primarily the 
securing of men in their rights. When they are de- 
prived of their rights a wrong is done. So liberty is 
a matter of fundamental morality. 

Conscience is sacred. It is the voice of God within 
the soul. It is our great moral guide. So far as it 
goes its authority is absolute; it must be obeyed. We 
can only live up to the light we have, but we know 
that we must live up to the light we have, or we do 
wrong. To disobey conscience is sin. But how can 
we obey conscience if we are not free ? 

It is the aim of all moral teaching as well as the aim 
of all government and law to bring home the sense of 
responsibility. But you cannot be held responsible for 



142 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

the thing you do under compulsion. It is only when 
you are free that you can justly be held responsible 
for your own acts. 

It is the right and duty of every one to make the 
most of himself. But how can he make the most of 
himself if he is not free to exercise his own powers, to 
take the things that will help him and to reject the 
things that will hinder him? The full freedom of in- 
itiative is necessary to the development of the indi- 
vidual, and also to the progress of the race. When 
freedom is impaired the advance of the world is re- 
tarded; when freedom is lost, the world halts in its 
upward march. As Emerson chants in his high strain: 

"It is ever the free race, with front sublime, 
And these instructed by their wisest too, 
Who do the feat, and lift humanity." 

It is by thinking for yourself, and deciding for your- 
self, and preparing to give an account of your conduct 
that you grow in moral stature and build your own 
character. It is the people who do think for them- 
selves, and decide for themselves, and accept full re- 
sponsibility for their own actions who lead the world 
forward toward better things. Tyranny is hateful be- 
cause it is hurtful; it arrests the moral progress of 
the race. 

Such considerations will make it clear to us, if it 
needed to be made clear, that liberty is before' all else 
a moral question, and that the passionate love of lib- 
erty, which has stirred and inspired men in all ages, 
has its basis and justification in the moral nature. 



LIBERTY AND MASTERY 143 

The Moral Right to Freedom Has a Moral Qualifi- 
cation. — But the right to freedom has one important 
qualification, which is again a moral qualification. A 
man has a right to be free only when he is fit to 
be free. When he is not fit to be free, when his full 
freedom would be injurious to himself and dangerous 
to others, then his freedom must be abridged. We 
confine the insane in asylums. They are not men- 
tally fit to be free. More and more we are calling 
these asylums hospitals, by which we mean that 
the insane are people with sick minds, who may be 
cured; and when they are cured they are to be re- 
stored to freedom. We confine the criminals in jails 
and prisons. They are not morally fit to be free. We 
are beginning to think of these criminals as people 
with sick wills, and to conduct the prisons as reforma- 
tories or hospitals, with a view to ultimate cure and 
release. Liberty is a right so sacred and so useful that 
it is not to be withheld from anybody fitted to have it. 
But nobody would be so foolish as to claim that the in- 
sane and the criminal are wrongfully deprived of their 
liberty, seeing that they are incapable of using it with 
comparative safety to themselves and their neighbors. 
People retain no right to freedom who are wholly unfit 
to be free. 

The Right to Liberty Is Both Natural and Acquired. — 
Moreover, we have to remember that we all began our 
lives in a state of dependence. The most helpless 
creature in the world is a human baby. Through the 
long period of infancy and youth we gradually learn 
to take care of ourselves and to respect the rights of 



144 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

others, and have our freedom gradually granted to us. 
It is both necessary and wise that children should be 
under the authority of parents or guardians, because 
they are not fit to be free. So freedom has to be re- 
garded not alone as a natural right, but as an acquired 
right. 

That does not express it very accurately either, for 
as matter of fact we get our reward a little before we 
have earned it, are given our freedom a little before 
we are fit to be free. It has to be so. Obedience to 
authority cannot quite fit us to become our own mas- 
ters. You never learn to swim till you get into the 
water, and you never learn the responsibilities of free- 
dom until you are free. Your parents know that they 
are taking grave chances as they dole out to you more 
and more freedom, and that they are taking fearful 
chances when at last they remove their supporting, 
guiding hands, and let you go your own way. They 
also know, if they are wise, that these chances have 
to be taken. They are a part of the adventure. Mis- 
takes are so probable as to be practically certain; but 
these same mistakes are the best of teachers. It is a 
blundering world we live in. That is what makes it so 
interesting and delightful. The time comes for every 
one when it is better to blunder in freedom than to 
do the correct thing under guidance. Beyond the 
gentle discipline of obedience is the discipline of free- 
dom which completes our education and fits us to be 
free. 

Freedom Means Power. — But now we want to in- 
quire a little more closely as to the meaning of liberty. 



LIBERTY AND MASTERY 145 

It means something more than mere permission to 
do as one pleases. It would be but a feeble sarcasm 
to tell a baby that he might do as he pleased. He can't 
do as he pleases. If a boy half-grown were told that 
he might do as he pleased, the sarcasm would not be 
so obvious, but it would be there. If he were the right 
kind of boy he would know, or he would soon find out, 
that he could not do as he pleased. He would want 
to do things for which he has not yet the preparation 
or the ability. Freedom cannot be conferred as a gift; 
it has to be achieved. Freedom means power; it 
means mastery. 

Discipline Aims at Both Freedom and Power. — You 
see the significance of all your tedious and laborious 
study to achieve an education. You have heard that 
u Knowledge is power." And that is true. But there 
is something more important than that. If you suc- 
ceed in mastering the subjects of your studies it is 
well; that means the enlarging of the field of your 
interests and the extending of your powers. But 
here again the by-product is more valuable than the 
product, the indirect object of more consequence than 
the direct object. For while you are mastering your 
subjects, you are also achieving a discipline of your 
own mind, subjugating it to your will. You are de- 
veloping your natural powers of intellect, organizing 
and drilling them as soldiers are organized and drilled 
to make an army, compelling them to do your bidding 
and giving them the habit of obedience. The purpose 
and end of it all is mastery of your own mind. 

This is the reason given for your learning some 



146 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

things which you will never use, and also a very good 
reason, I think, for your studying some subjects that 
are not interesting to you. However wisely you may 
choose your calling, there will be many things to do 
that will be disagreeable. If your mind is under a good 
discipline, if your will has mastered your desires and 
your mental indolence, you will be able to do these 
things rapidly and well. The useless studies are re- 
tained in the curriculum because they are supposed 
to afford the best and most thorough mental disci- 
pline. But you see that all your studies, agreeable 
and disagreeable, have this subtle purpose beyond the 
mere acquisition of information — the mastering of 
your own mind so that it can and will do the things 
you bid it do. They are to fit you to go to your work 
and your freedom in the proud spirit of the conqueror, 
saying not, I wish, or I would; but I can, and I will. 
Knowledge is indeed power; it is freedom; it goes 
where ignorance can never go, however eager it may be. 

"They are free whom the Truth makes free, 
And all are slaves besides." 

The Abuse of Liberty Forfeits Self-Mastery. — But 
there is more than knowledge to be mastered, more 
than one's mental powers to be subdued and disci- 
plined, before one achieves self-mastery. There are 
temptations to be met and conquered, and there are 
appetites to be brought under control. Indeed I have 
spoken of the education of the mind more by way of 
illustration than because it falls within the purpose of 
this chapter. 



LIBERTY AND MASTERY 147 

Now there is a curious illusion prevalent among 
many young people and some older people to the 
effect that sin means freedom and virtue means re- 
straint. Of course there is this element of truth in 
it that virtue does mean restraint put upon passion 
and appetite. It is also true that freedom means free- 
dom to do wrong as well as freedom to do right. But 
when one uses his freedom to do wrong, he sells him- 
$elf into slavery. For instance, the drinking of intoxi- 
cants is often defended on the grounds of liberty. A 
man will say — alas! very often a boy will say — "I am 
free to eat and drink what I please." Very true. But 
if he eats and drinks things that are not good for him 
he will find that he is not free to escape their effects. 
If he forms harmful habits he will find that he has en- 
tered into a cruel bondage from which escape will be 
exceeding difficult. If he weakly yields to appetite 
he will surely find that he is breaking down his own 
powers of body and mind, that he is forfeiting the mas- 
tery of himself. 

The Weak Are Doomed to Bondage. — The truth is 
that there is no freedom, no pride, no strength in sin. 
Sin is mean and abject. Sin is bondage. It dismantles 
the soul of its powers. It is the surrender to passion, 
to appetite, to desires which the man is too cowardly 
to combat or too weak to overcome. There are sins 
of ignorance, of course, which are entitled to some tol- 
erant and charitable commiseration. But generally we 
cannot plead ignorance as an excuse for doing wrong. 
We know well enough when we are doing wrong, and 
we know the consequences, if we stop to think. Any- 



148 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

way we would be ashamed to plead the excuse of igno- 
rance. Still more would we be ashamed to plead the 
true excuse, which is weakness. Whether we yield to 
the persuasions of others, or to the urging of our own 
appetites and desires, when we do wrong we are 
mastered; we have lost control of ourselves. To 
make this perfectly clear we have only to go to where 
sin reigns in undisputed sway. The one characteristic 
which degraded people all have in common is weak- 
ness of will, the lack of self-control. There we have our 
lesson in big print. 

Temptation is an insult to our self-respect; it is a 
covert insinuation that we are cowards and weaklings. 
But what we want to see just now is that it is a trap 
set to catch us and deprive us of our liberty. The big 
talk about asserting one's personal liberty by doing 
wrong is so entirely silly that it ought to deceive no- 
body. 

All Vices Enslave Their Victims. — But while the 
sensual vices afford us the simplest examples of the 
bondage to which sin reduces men, they do not exhaust 
the subject, nor do they even constitute its most im- 
portant part. Whatever robs men of their freedom, 
whatever takes from them the mastery of themselves 
and their own lives, is to be regarded as evil. Greed, 
for instance, is a vice that is often able to masquerade 
in very respectable clothes; but in itself it is shameful, 
for it corrupts the soul and debases the life. Its vic- 
tim is no longer his own man; he is sold to his own pas- 
sion for money. 

It is not unusual to hear a business man say with 



LIBERTY AND MASTERY 149 

a sigh wonderfully like the sigh of the prisoner behind 
the bars: "I no longer run my business; my business 
runs me. I have never an hour that I can call my 
own. The things that I would like to do, and that I 
used to plan to do, I have to forego." It is the cry of 
the starling: "I can't get out! I can't get out!" 
The man has lost his freedom; he has lost the mas- 
tery, since he cannot direct his life toward his own 
ideals. Now ask him why he doesn't give up busi- 
ness and turn to the things he loves, and hear his 
answer — I have heard it many times: "I can't do it," 
he will say; "I am all tied up in obligations that 
cover years ahead. I am bought and paid for, and I 
must deliver the goods." That is one example of the 
way men forfeit their freedom and their mastery. It 
looks innocent enough, and perhaps it is without the 
sense of guilt. But is anything ever innocent that 
keeps a man from living his own life in his own way, 
especially if it diverts him from the higher aims of life 
to something that he feels is lower? 

Present-Day Peril from " The Great God Success." 
— This comparatively innocent example introduces us 
to the peculiar peril of our age and land. It is a sober 
age we live in, and so the intoxicating pleasures of 
life do not appeal to us so strongly as do the serious 
triumphs. The worship of Mammon, of which I have 
spoken, is but a phase of the corrupting religion whose 
worship is paid to "The Great God Success." Once 
the temptations of success appealed to a comparatively 
few; the rest had no chance at anything like a success- 
ful life, and so there was nothing to stir their ambition. 



V 



150 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

Now the glory of success appeals to multitudes. For 
another thing, the rewards of success are grown so 
much greater that the temptations are by so much the 
stronger. The prosperity of the world to-day enables 
the devil to bid higher in the market of manhood. 
And when success is made to mean so much, when its 
rewards are so enormous, more than ever we need to 
be fortified in right principles, high sense of honor and 
duty, in noble and incorruptible ideals. 

And the peril is made still the greater because suc- 
cess is permitted to cover and atone for the wrongs 
by which it was achieved. There are not many who 
will hold the successful man to so strict an accounting 
as the man who has failed, or seemed to fail. Almost 
nobody expects the rich man to be as good as he ex- 
pects the poor man to be. 

" Plate sin with gold, 
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; 
Arm it in rags, a pygmy's straw doth pierce it." 

One Is Never His Own Free Master Unless He 
Can Regulate His Ambitions. — Now you see that this 
ardent pursuit of success is very likely to put down 
and trample underfoot the moral scruples. At the 
first the aim may be only an honorable success to be 
achieved by hard work and honest means; but there 
is very grave danger that it will become mere success 
by any means and at any price. When just methods 
threaten failure, the temptations are sure to come 
with ever-increasing number and strength to resort to 
unjust methods. The motto of comparatively good 



LIBERTY AND MASTERY 151 

men often seems to be something like this: "I will 
win honestly if I can, but anyway I must win." 

When success becomes an unscrupulous taskmaster, 
it makes the man its slave, even while he thinks he is 
its conqueror and master. A man is never his own 
man until he can master and regulate his own ambi- 
tions. It is not always the strong man who seems 
to master affairs; it is often the weak man who has 
yielded to the seductions of success. The world's 
crowns are often made of tinsel, and fools sell their 
souls, put their integrity in pawn, to purchase the 
tawdry things. Those who would maintain their free- 
dom must often pay the price of failure, or what is 
called failure. 

The Moral Success of a Man Who Failed. — I knew 
of a man, a lawyer, of great learning and ability, who 
was noted for what was reckoned eccentricity in the 
practice of his profession. He would take no case un- 
less fully satisfied of its justice. Upon a few occa- 
sions he gave serious embarrassment to his clients by 
abandoning their causes in the midst of trial because 
he discovered some crookedness of which he had not 
been aware. There was a large and remunerative em- 
ployment always tempting him to depart from the 
path of honor which he had marked out for himself. 
To make the temptations stronger he had severe do- 
mestic afflictions which kept him at great expense. 
One day in conversation with a friend of mine he spoke 
rather sadly of himself as a failure. My friend re- 
plied something like this: "My dear fellow, don't 
spoil one of my ideals. I have been accustomed to 



152 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

think of you as one of the ornaments and triumphs of 
our profession. You have never consented to soil 
your hands with unclean business. You have marked 
out your own course and followed it faithfully. You 
have maintained your freedom and been your own 
master in spite of all your temptations." Isn't it per- 
fectly clear that my friend was right in his estimate of 
that man's life ? By ordinary reckoning he was a fail- 
ure; but by a higher reckoning he was anything but 
a failure; he had kept the mastery. 

Master Yourselves in Order to Be Free. — You would 
like to succeed, of course you would! Nobody pur- 
posely sets out to be a failure. But the first thing 
is to succeed in being a man, a free man; after that 
comes success in your occupation. It is a pitiful thing 
to be a success in one's occupation, and at the price 
of being a failure as a man. The heroic attitude chal- 
lenges the fates, reckless of consequences. It is not 
afraid of the world. It says: " world, you are strong, 
but you can't master me. O world, you are rich, but 
you can't buy me. I am free; I am master of myself" 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

I shall suggest but one reading at the end of this chapter, a 
poem by William Ernest Henley; and since it may not always 
be accessible I quote it entire : 

"Out of the night that covers me, 
Black as the Pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods may be 
For my unconquerable soul. 

In the feU clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced nor cried aloud. 



LIBERTY AND MASTERY 153 

Under the bludgeonings of chance 
My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this place of wrath and tears 

Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
And yet the menace of the years 

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. 

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate: 
I am the captain of my soul." 



CHAPTER XIV 

GETTING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD 

The Temptation of Power.— Having achieved your 
liberty and the mastery of yourself, what are you go- 
ing to do with the new power that has come into your 
hands? You have heard that knowledge is power, 
and it is for that reason you are toiling over your 
books. You want to enter life equipped for its tasks, 
equal to its demands. But when, by your years of 
schooling, you have built up your power, what are 
you going to do with it? You have heard that clean 
and orderly living develops strong men. I have been 
trying to tell you that obedience to moral laws enlarges 
your life and subdues the world at your feet. But to 
what end? Why should you want to be strong and 
free? Why should you want to do larger things and 
better things? 

If you try to answer these questions for yourself 
you will find that liberty and mastery have brought 
you into new peril, face to face with a great tempta- 
tion. There is no temptation greater than the temp- 
tation of power. You can see that if you will consider 
the men who have mastered the other temptations 
and so made themselves strong, but who yield to the 
temptation of power, subdued by the opportunities 
that come to them for self-gratification in one form or 

154 



GETTING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD 155 

another. One man plods his way to a fortune, and 
when he becomes rich abandons the principles which 
have guided him and helped him; regards his wealth 
as a means to the gratification of his own tastes or his 
ambitions. Another man plods his way to learning, 
and as his mind widens his heart narrows and hardens. 
His culture is for his own enjoyment, and he forgets 
or despises the less fortunate multitude whom he has 
left behind him. Knowledge is power, and money 
also is power. But like political power and every other 
power, these powers may be abused, and as we see the 
world, they are very likely to be abused by being pros- 
tituted to selfish and unjust purposes. 

The Temptation May Be Either Indolent or Preda- 
tory. — The temptation of power may come in one of 
two ways, which, however, are not always separate 
and distinct from each other. The first is the tempta- 
tion to enjoy the fruits of power in a secluded and ex- 
clusive life. The rich man retires to live in comfort, 
surrounded by people of his own class, indifferent to 
public duty. The educated man shuts himself within 
his library, mingling only with other educated people, 
careless of the social needs of his time. The good man 
immures himself in his church and his respectability; 
if others are not good it is their own fault and no con- 
cern of his. All three employ their power to purchase 
for themselves a leisurely, comfortable life, from which 
disagreeable things are shut out, and in which social 
duty has no place. 

The second form of the temptation is to employ 
power in imposing one's own will upon others for one's 



156 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

own advantage or aggrandizement. The rich man 
uses his power to build still larger his own fortune by 
whatever cruelty or extortion the laws allow. This is 
the "predatory wealth" of which we hear. But there 
is also a predatory culture, usually allied with preda- 
tory wealth, which exploits the world for its own ad- 
vantage. The aristocracies of the Old World illustrate 
this, and democracy has not yet freed us from the pre- 
tensions of a class which claims to be and aims to be 
the "ruling class." There is even a predatory virtue, 
which passes under the name of philanthropy. It is 
concerned with social duty, but in a high-handed and 
arbitrary way. When it does good it claims the credit 
of it, and regards its performances as so much charity 
gratuitously conferred. It is willing to degrade those 
whom it helps by making them the receivers of alms rather 
than of justice. All three again, rich man, educated 
man, and good man, find in power the temptation to 
work their own will, whether for their own advantage 
or ostensibly for the good of others. 

Our Moral Victories Thrust Us Upon New Adven- 
tures. — We find that the law of moral hazard is con- 
tinuous. No achievement brings us into a position 
of moral security. On the contrary, every achievement 
brings us into new peril, new temptation. We have a 
saying that the best of life is at the top, and that is 
true. But danger belongs among the best things of 
life. The rewards of victory are new commissions to 
greater adventures. The higher we climb on any of 
the ladders of life, the greater the demand upon cour- 
age, integrity, and faithfulness. Perils always thicken 



GETTING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD 157 

as we go forward. The temptations of the boy are tame 
as compared with the temptations of the man. The 
temptations of the one who has got power in his hands 
to use the power selfishly, cruelly, and unjustly are far 
greater than any temptations that come to the feeble. 
We easily recognize this fact in the case of wealth, 
where the power to do as one pleases and the abuses 
of such power are obvious. Nobody quite expects the 
rich man to be as good, as just, and as kind as he was 
before he became rich. We rather wonder at it when 
the sons and daughters of the rich abstain from the 
vices of luxury. 

But if the temptations of wealth are more obvious 
because they are more sensual and gross, they are none 
the more real, and no more certain than the tempta- 
tions which come to every one who has attained to 
freedom and the mastery of his own life. That our 
moral victories increase our moral strength is certainly 
true; it needs to be true, for even our moral victories 
thrust us into the place of severer trial. 

The Duty of Service Represents the Latest Advance 
in Moral Standards. — But we return to our question: 
What are we to do with our strength as we grow 
stronger, with our knowledge as we become wiser, 
with our freedom and mastery as we achieve them? 
The moral standards of our time condemn the selfish 
life. We know that it is not enough that one shall 
just be good in a narrow, private way. No man may 
justly "live unto himself. " Power is to be used, not 
left idle. It is to be used and not abused. It is to be 
employed in service. 



158 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

But is this a question oi morals ? It is not always so 
regarded. The man who has money may say, and he 
very often does say, that he may give or not as he 
pleases, and that when he does give it is a charity 
which he does not have to practise. The man who 
gives service might say — perhaps he rarely does — that 
it is not obligatory, that it is no part of his moral duty. 
He has done his duty when he has paid for what he 
gets and deals honestly by his neighbor; whatever 
more he does is a benevolence that goes beyond duty. 
Is that true ? Is service a gratuity or is it a duty ? Is 
it a gift or the payment of a debt ? 

We Begin Our Life Under a Weight of Debt— This 
is a moral question. Service is a duty, not an alms. 
Power must pay its way; it must pay for itself. It is 
obtained at a great price, the greater part of which 
was paid by others than its possessor. Its possessor 
owes restitution. We sometimes say of the gifts of the 
rich, the predatory rich, that these gifts are "con- 
science money"; they are an attempt to pay back 
that which has been taken wrongfully. Such at- 
tempts at restitution are very blundering; they do 
not always reach either the people who have been 
wronged or their heirs. Nevertheless they are better 
than no restitution at all. When Zaccheus bestows 
half his wealth upon the poor, it is at least an effort 
toward a belated honesty, and a recognition of the fact 
that he has something that does not belong to him 
for his own enjoyment. 

The illustration is not wholly exact, for we may not 
be in the possession of dishonest gains. But we all are 



GETTING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD 159 

in possession of more than we ever earned or paid for. 
We begin our life under a staggering weight of debt 
which we can never fully discharge. If we give money 
it is properly "conscience money." If we give service 
it is a service which conscience demands. If we are 
in possession of any power it is to be employed for the 
benefit of mankind because we already owe it. We 
owe it to somebody, and mankind is the only creditor 
within our reach. The possession of power is delight- 
ful, not merely because it is pleasant to be conscious 
of power, but because it enables us to meet our ob- 
ligations and pay our debts. 

We Owe Somebody for the World Which We Oc- 
cupy. — I say we begin life under a burden of debt. 
We have so much for which we have given very little 
or in some instances nothing at all. Consider the phys- 
ical world which is our home. What a wonderful world 
of beauty and order and law it is I God has given it to 
us without compensation. We pay a great price for 
the painting of a landscape to hang upon our walls. 
But here is the landscape itself, with its mountains 
and hills, its rivers and seas, its forests and fields, its 
inimitable colors; and it cost us nothing at all. We talk 
about our wealth as the product of human ingenuity 
and labor. But do we not know that the ultimate 
wealth is in the soil beneath our feet, and in the sun- 
shine and the rain which come unbidden to turn the 
soil into bread for us? We are guests in a beautiful 
and comfortable house, whose chambers are already 
stored with rich garments for us to wear and every ap- 
pointment for our happiness. Do we not owe some- 



160 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

body for all this ? And how shall the debt be paid ? I 
suppose by helping others to enjoy it as we do; by 
cherishing all this beauty as a treasure of value. At 
least we will say that we have no right to neglect this 
great gift nor abuse it; we have no right to make the 
world ugly for others, or uncomfortable for others. 
That would be a poor return to make for our own 
great enjoyment. 

We Come into an Estate Which Others Have Paid 
for. — Or consider our enormous debt to the past. How 
much the generations behind us have put into the 
world to make it a richer and happier place ! " Others 
have labored, and we are entered into their labors." 
Treasures of learning and literature, of art and skill 
have come down to us. Our enlightenment, our lib- 
erty, our security of life and property under just laws 
— these things were obtained at a great price, but we 
did not pay it. In a previous chapter I said that our 
knowledge of moral distinctions had been wrought out 
in the long and painful experiment of human history. 
It comes to us ready-made, and therefore may seem 
cheap; but the suffering and anguish consequent upon 
innumerable blunders have contributed to this knowl- 
edge and built it up. We are the residuary legatees 
of innumerable generations, whose labor of hand and 
brain, whose sufferings and heroisms have enriched 
the world in which we live. To enjoy our blessings 
with no effort to pay for them is immoral. 

But how shall we pay for them? The people from 
whom we have received them are gone to "the undis- 
covered country"; we can do nothing for them beyond 



GETTING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD 161 

honoring their memory, and that is not a satisfactory 
return to make. Then what can we do to put our- 
selves square? The very least that we can do is to 
pass our inheritance on, unimpaired. But we have a 
duty that goes beyond that; we can pass our blessings 
on, not only unimpaired, but enriched by our own con- 
tributions; we must pay over the principal which we 
have received, with interest for our use of it. 

The Payment of Money Cannot Square Us with Our 
Creditors. — Our creditors are not all in the past and 
in the skies either. We have a multitude of living 
creditors whom we must meet face to face. If we are 
to meet them unabashed we must give them their dues. 
Beware of the shallow and ignorant theory of justice 
which puts our obligations on the commercial basis 
of the market-place and the factory. Perhaps you 
have heard men say something like this: "I paid good 
money for my goods, and they are mine, to do with as 
I please. I paid him his wages, and we are quits: I 
owe him nothing." Well, it must be granted that for 
some goods and for some services we may pay all they 
are worth and even more than they are worth. But 
for the thing of value, do we ever pay all that it is 
worth to us? 

You pay your doctor's bill when it is presented. 
Are you therefore quits with your doctor? Suppose 
that his science and skill have saved your life, or the 
life of some one dear to you. Neither the payment of 
your bill nor any money compensation that you can 
think of would be an equivalent for the value which 
you have received. We pay our teachers, very in- 



162 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

adequately, it is true, but we pay them. Are we quits 
with our teachers ? If it were possible for you to part 
with what you have learned in school, what would you 
take for it? The value of wisdom is indeed "above 
rubies," but there are neither rubies nor diamonds in 
the compensation we render to those who teach us 
wisdom. 

Along with our physicians and our teachers there 
are throngs of people about us with whom we have 
not settled, and cannot settle on a money basis. Our 
business men take pride in their just dealings, in meet- 
ing all their obligations in full as they fall due. But 
our business men are receiving constant benefits from 
introductions and recommendations and such-like acts 
of friendship, which they cannot even assess at their 
true value. It is so in all our social relations. We 
are debtors in every direction, and there is something 
beyond prices and fees and salaries which we must pay 
to put ourselves square. 

Our Debt to the Toiling Poor Is Not Discharged with 
Wages. — Consider, also, for a moment — for a moment 
now, and I trust with seriousness all the years of your 
life — the enormous debt you owe to those of whom 
you may think as occupying an inferior station in life, 
the people who serve you in humble tasks. We pay 
the laborer his wages, by which is always meant the 
lowest sum for which he can be induced to work. We 
pay the laborer his wages, and say that we have dis- 
charged the obligation, and are quits. But that is 
just the view of things which the ethical standards of 
our time will not permit us to take. When we have 



GETTING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD 163 

paid the laborer his wages we are still in debt to him, 
because he has given us more than we have paid for, 
because he has helped us more than we have helped 
him. When there is a strike in some line of industry, 
we suddenly realize our dependence upon those who 
toil with their hands, and see how helpless we should 
be without them. Mere wages can never discharge 
that debt any more than the payment of his fees 
can put us at quits with the physician who has saved 
a precious life. For you see, labor is saving our lives 
and doing it over and over again every day. More- 
over it saves our lives by imperilling often and sacrific- 
ing always its own life. The farm-hand sweating in 
the summer field, the miner burrowing in the bowels 
of the earth for the coal to keep our firesides warm, 
the "sandhog" tunnelling under the river, the iron- 
maker scorching before hellish fires, the factory opera- 
tive with sunken eye and hollowed chest enfeebling 
himself at his bench — the tens of thousands of people 
who are doing for us the things we can't do for our- 
selves, or don't want to do for ourselves, are all putting 
us under enormous obligation. We can't dismiss them 
from our minds and consciences by saying that they 
get their wages and so their accounts are settled. The 
light that guides our consciences will not have ac- 
counts settled so easily and so cheaply, as though we 
were settling with our creditors for a few cents on the 
dollar. The thought of the toiling poor disturbs our 
peace because we feel that their condition reproaches 
us and that we owe them something which has not 
been paid. 



164 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

We Have Received More Than Our Share of the 
Common Blessings. — The ethical law that the strong 
should bear the burdens of the weak has a twofold 
explanation. In the first place it is apparent that ser- 
vice is the very purpose of strength. If one is stronger 
than another it is that he may do more or give himself 
to harder tasks. If one is wiser than another it is that 
he may do more than half the thinking. If a big boy 
refuses to help a little boy up a hill, we will say, or 
across a stream, you do not say that he is acting within 
his rights; you say that he is mean, that he isn't fair. 
You detest the big bully because he uses his strength 
selfishly and cruelly, not for the thing his strength is 
for. The strong ought to bear the burdens of the 
weak because they can. 

But the strong have an obligation also, because they 
have their strength at the expense of the weak. If you 
attain to power is it not because you appropriate more 
of the blessings of life than are enjoyed by others? 
You are physically strong because you have plenty of 
fresh air and good food. But in the crowded tenement 
there are those who are deprived of their share of 
wholesome food and even of the fresh air of heaven. 
If you are intellectually strong it is because you 
have better educational advantages than others. So 
through all the elements which make up your freedom 
and mastery. You have the advantage in an unequal 
distribution of opportunities, or at least you are able 
to make a better use of your opportunities than others. 
As things are in this world it does not seem possible 
as yet to restore the balance, but we can do something 



GETTING SQUARE WITH THE WORLD 165 

toward it. In common fairness it is plainly our moral 
duty to do that something by distributing the bur- 
dens according to the strength. And that means that 
the strong shall bear the burdens of the weak. 

Moreover, if you are free to work with your brains, 
we have seen that it is because somebody else is doing 
for you your share of the manual work of the world. 
If they work for you with their hands it is only fair 
that you shall think for them with your heads. If 
they have to sacrifice for you what we call the higher 
things of life, you ought to make a return of service. 
In order to pay your way as you go, as far as you can ever 
pay your way, you owe to mankind your friendship, your 
interest, and whatever you can do to better the condition 
of others. 

Service Is Not Philanthropy nor Charity, but Com- 
mon Honesty. — This law of social service is the most 
significant ethical development of the age in which we 
live. It puts the brotherhood of man on a basis of 
definite moral obligation. It brings kindness down — 
or up — to the level of duty. We see in the clear light 
of our day that power is debased by yielding to the 
temptations of selfishness, and that its possessor is 
accountable for its righteous employment. He owes 
to mankind, and especially to the weak, the poor, the 
unfortunate, a debt which can be paid only by faith- 
ful service. I repeat that this is a moral question, not 
a question of sentiment or of gratuitous charity. In 
serving mankind with our powers, whatever they be, 
we are neither gods nor philanthropists bestowing 
alms, but just decent, honest people, doing our duty 






166 TALKS TO YOUNG PEOPLE 

and paying our debts. In so doing we shall have noth- 
ing to boast of. We are to see to it that we have 
nothing to be ashamed of, that we play a straight 
game and give a square deal, that we recognize our 
debt and render payment to the limit of our powers. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING 

In a volume of religious and social essays entitled Our City 
of God, by J. Brierley, there are two essays which may be read 
in connection with the subject of this chapter: XV, "The 
Ethics of Ownership," and XVII, "Our Debt to Life." Edwin 
Markham's Man With the Hoe, and Lowell's Parable, beginning: 
"Said Christ our Lord, 'I will go and see — ' " are poems that 
may be read. But the subject of service is so in the air to-day 
that no one can miss interesting and valuable contributions to 
the discussion of it. 



INDEX 



Achievement, passion for, 109. 
Addison, Joseph, 25, 79. 
Adventure of right living, 7, 

48-57, 156. 
Advice based on experience, 5. 
Ambitions to be regulated, 150. 
Avebury, Lord, 79, 93. 

Battle of life, 37-47. 
Bible, 13. 
Black, Hugh, 79. 
Bondage: 

of habit, 87. 

of evil, 147. 
Brierley, J., 166. 
Browning, Robert, 13, 47. 

Cabot, Richard C, 112, 124. 
Change, an element of play, 

116 ff. 
Character: 

the goal of right living, 24. 

developed by struggle, 44, 
45. 

depends on continued effort, 
102. 
Civilization: 

and morals, 26. 

and cultivation, 92 ff. 
Class distinctions, 132, 133. 
Companions, 69-79. 
Conscience, 14-25: 

and liberty, 141. 
Consequences: 

when to be considered, 20. 

reveal quality of acts, 34. 

not foreseen, 53, 54. 



Contrasts, law of, 35, 36. 
Courage, 58-68. 
Cowardice: 

of age, 5, 6. 

leads to cruelty, 63. 
Crothers, Samuel McChord, 
57. 

Danger attractive, 52. 

Debt, our burden of, 158-166. 

Decision called for by con- 
science, 19. 

Degeneration, 92-102. 

Development, satisfaction of, 
34,35. 

Dickens, Charles, 40. 

Discipline, aims of, 145. 

Drummond, Henry, 93, 102. 

Dual nature, 37-39. 

Eliot, George, 138. 

Emerson, Ralph W., 57, 68, 

142. 
Environment influencing mor- 
als, 27, 28, 69-79. 
Ethics, derivation of word, 89. 
Evil: 
contagious, 74, 76. 
effects permanent, 77. 
Evolution and cultivation, 95, 

96. 
Experience: 
value of, 3-13. 
confirming conclusions, 14. 
develops moral judgments, 
27. 



167 



168 



INDEX 



Fear: 
incites to wrong, 63 ff. 
painful, 66, 67. 

Galsworthy, John, 63. 
Game: 

pleasures of, 106, 107. 

rules of, 118. 

The Great, 122, 123. 
Good and evil: 

distinction between, 14, 26- 
38. 

is normal, 33, 34. 
Goodness costs rather than 
pays, 41. 

Habits, 34, 42, 43, 80-91. 
Happiness the reward of vir- 
tue, 48. 
Henley, William Ernest, 152. 
Heroism, 7, 8, 48-57, 58-68. 
Holmes, Oliver W., 138. 

Idleness immoral, 106 ff. 
Instinct and habit, 81, 82. 
Intolerance, 22. 
Isolation harmful, 78. 

James, William, 57, 91. 
Japanese Emperor, 72. 
Joy of work, 104-106. 
Justice: 

of boys, 10. 

due to all, 137, 138. 

Kant, Immanuel, 14. 
Kipling, Rudyard, 68. 

Laws made to protect society 
against the individual, 31, 
32, 127. 

Lever, Charles J., 125. 

Liberty, 139-153. 

Little-mindedness, 125-138. 



Lodge, Sir Oliver, 33. 
Lowell, James Russell, 41, 67, 
102, 138, 166. 

Markham, Edwin, 57, 166. 

Mastery, 139-153. 

Mistakes, learning by, 4, 6, 29, 

30. 
Moral conflict inevitable, 40, 

43. 
Moral distinctions, reality of, 

30, 31. 
Moral education, 18, 23, 28. 
Moral judgments, 26-36: 
differing, 17, 21-23. 
distinct from conscience, 17, 

18, 23, 24. 
Moral progress, 9, 12, 26, 27. 
Mothers, their wisdom, 69, 70. 

National limitations, 134, 135. 
Nature, analogy of, in morals, 

92 ff. 
Neglect and degeneration, 92- 

102. 
Newbolt, Henry, 123. 

Patriotism, 133-136. 
Perils: 

to be met, not avoided, 5, 7. 

the glory of life, 12. 

thicken as we go on, 13, 156. 
Philanthropy, 165: 

predatory, 156. 
Play, 113-124. 
Public opinion, 21. 

Race prejudice, 136. 
Responsibility and freedom, 

141, 142. 
Rewards, 48, 55, 56, 105. 
Ridicule, 63. 
Righteousness, romance of, 12, 

51, 53. 



INDEX 



169 



Right-mindedness of the young, 

8,9. 
Ruskin, John, 13, 112. 

"Safety first" not a moral 

maxim, 5, 6, 43. 
School spirit, 74. 
Self-control, 148. 
Self-degradation, 111, 112. 
Self-interest and morals, 31, 

32. 
Self-respect: 

and work, 107 ff. 

and temptation, 148. 
Selfishness: 

thwarting common good, 
125-127. 

at root of all sin, 129. 

of class, 132. 

of community, 131. 

of family, 130. 

of nation, 133-135. 

of race, 136, 137. 
Service, duty of, 157 ff. 
Sex difference in morals, 10, 

58, 59. 
Spenser, Edmund, 57. 
Square, getting, with the world, 

154-156. 
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 39, 

47. 
Strength, obligation of, 164. 
Strife, joy of, 46. 
Student government, 75. 



Study: 

habit of, 84, 85. 

of useless things, 146. 
Success, temptations of, 149- 
152. 

Temperance, 20, 88, 89, 147. 
Temptation, 111, 148: 

of power, 154, 155. 

of timidity, 5. 
Tennyson, Alfred, 55, 57, 77. 

"Valor of ignorance," 60, 61. 
Van Dyke, Henry, 112, 124. 
Virtus and virtue, 58. 



and social duty, 161-163. 

righteousness has none, 55. 
Walton, Izaak, 124. 
War: 

and liberty, 140. 

and virile virtues, 44-46. 

occasioned by fear, 65, 66. 
Wealth: 

predatory, 155, 156. 

temptations of, 157. 
Wordsworth, William, 13, 25, 

47. 
Work, 103-112. 
Wrong-doing injures self, 16, 

31, 32. 
Wrong never done for noth- 
ing, 56. 



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